A page in globalization turned on Tuesday December 6, 2022, under the Arizona sun, among cacti and desert hills. That day, a crowd of Taiwanese and American politicians and bosses gathered near Phoenix, for the launch of the construction site of two semiconductor factories, by the Taiwanese TSMC, for 40 billion dollars ( 37.6 billion euros) of investment.
The perfect opportunity for American President Joe Biden to announce on site, in front of an American flag hanging from construction equipment, that “American manufacturing is back. » In fact, it is in part thanks to his administration that factories will see the light of day in 2025 by receiving part of the $52 billion in subsidies intended for the semiconductor sector, provided for in the Chips and Science Act of 2022.
That day, Morris Chang, the founding president of TSMC present at this ceremony, saw another victory, that of protectionism. “Globalization is almost dead, free trade is almost dead”, he declared, chilling the audience. The 91-year-old captain of industry knows what he is talking about: in three decades, globalization has allowed him to build his empire on relocations and hyperspecialization.
This death of globalization based on free trade will be confirmed a few months later by American and European leaders. “The main international economic project of the 1990s was the reduction of customs duties”, explains the American national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on April 27, while adding that “the project for the years 2020 and 2030 is different”. He outlines its new contours: globalization based on diversified supply chains that are resilient to geopolitical vulnerabilities, the energy transition, or even the “protection” of work.
Great fragility
A few weeks later, Ursula von der Leyen followed suit, declaring on June 20: “Global integration and the opening of economies have been a positive force for our businesses, our competitiveness and our European economy. (…) But we must also be lucid about a world that has become more contested and geopolitical. » And the President of the European Commission immediately announced, for the first time, a strategy “economic security” to guarantee the “sovereignty” of the European Union (EU).
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