A New Globalization: How Trade and Power Restructuring is Changing Global Supply Chains

In the developed world, we often take the positive correlation between openness to trade and development for granted. After all, the world has seen the greatest amount of economic growth ever in this relatively short period of time in which global markets have been very accessible. There can be many factors attributed to this perspective on the near-universal association between trade and wealth, such as its simple, intuitive reasoning, a historical drive for developed nations to seek out beneficial trade opportunities, or perhaps even a general lack of awareness when it comes to how such enterprising attitudes may impact those living in entirely different civilizations. Whatever the reasoning may be, the reality is that global trade or openness to it is not as cut and dry as many would like to believe, nor does trade openness come as freely as one might expect, as certain conditions are needed in order to foster access to well-developed markets. It has been observed recently that the cost of doing trade, so to speak, has been increasing globally as certain state and nonstate actors push against the free trade model developed by the United States after World War II. It is with this challenge in mind that we explore the recent changes in the balance of global power dynamics that have led to a decline in the openness of the globalized economy. Saying this, we are not advocating for an end to "globalization", rather, this paper is meant to observe multiple potential frustrations to the current economic global order and the resulting fallout of trade among the world’s top economies.