Global Trade Wars: How the World Is Moving from Free Trade to Strategic Competition
By Nihar Satsangi and Shrinjoy Chakraborty SIBM, Noida Introduction For many years the global economy appeared to obey a simple rule to the effect that the more freely countries traded, the better off everyone was. It was possible for firms to produce their products in countries where it was cheaper to do so, to get their raw materials from another part of the world and then to sell their finished goods almost everywhere, with consumers enjoying lower prices, businesses being able to tap into bigger markets and the various countries becoming more closely linked through international trade. In recent years governments have begun to pose a new series of questions: what would happen if an important supply chain suddenly collapsed? What if a country became too reliant on another nation for technology, medicines or essential raw materials? And what if it turned out that economic dependence was a threat to national security? Where is trade liberalization now? Trade liberalisation just ...
