LInternational trade has never developed independently of political relations between nations. Mercantilist authors from the turn of the 16th centurye and XVIIe centuries justified surpluses in the balance of trade by their counterpart in the form of inflows of gold allowing monarchs to raise armies of mercenaries. Montesquieu (1689-1755) saw in the “sweet trade” the means of civilizing international relations and avoiding wars. The continental blockade imposed by Napoleon between 1806 and 1814 aimed at the ruin of England by preventing it from trading with the rest of Europe…
More recently, the embargo and the use of trade sanctions against Russia, or the launching by President Donald Trump of a trade and technological war with China, perfectly illustrate this continuity: the questions of security, national independence and the struggle for power inexorably interferes with trade.
This is reflected today in the fear of geoeconomic fragmentation in response to the non-economic objectives of trade policies or industrial policies. The shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, their effects on imports of certain products adding to the very strong tensions on the geopolitical level, explain the very strong extension of measures restricting free trade, to aim for strategic autonomy. These respond much more to criteria of resilience and security than to threats of an economic nature, both on the side of States and on the side of firms, when it comes to global production chains.
This is particularly the case in the United States, where the notion of “trade between friendly countries” defended by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, leads to politically favoring such exchanges and reducing others. It is about moving production chains to trusted countries, sharing the same values, the same alliances, in order to build “safe trade”. The formation of commercial blocs then emerges, of a geopolitical rather than geographical nature, depending on the requirements of resilience or security. States, like companies, bring global production chains into the sphere of geopolitical rivalry.
Conflicting globalization
It is necessary to underline the profound change that this turnaround induces. The periods of globalization and then hyperglobalization took place largely on the basis of comparative advantages. They have led to a reduction in poverty in the world and an indisputable reduction in inequalities between national economies, at the cost of an increase in inequalities within some of them. We were in a positive sum game. From now on, non-economic objectives, the political and geopolitical dimension, rivalries in terms of power or power, etc., play a dominant role in a number of areas (access to rare resources, control of technologies), to the detriment of the game of markets, even if they are imperfect, and therefore economic efficiency through specialization, economies of scale or agglomeration, the diffusion of technological advances, etc.
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