Global Trade Is Rerouting Around Geopolitical Rivalries

For decades, the world economy was organized around the expectation that greater connection could bring greater prosperity. Trade crossed borders, supply chains stretched around the globe, and capital, goods and ideas moved with increasing freedom. Each region played a part in a system designed for efficiency.

That system is under strain as geopolitical tensions rise. But the change is not necessarily from connection to isolation: it is a change in how the world connects. Governments are using tariffs, subsidies and industrial policy to pull manufacturing home and compete with rivals, while placing greater weight on security, resilience and strategic autonomy.

Those priorities alter the practical questions facing governments and businesses: where products are made, where resources come from, and how critical technologies are secured. A chart in the Lombard Odier graphic compares trade restrictions in 2019 and 2026, showing a significant increase but giving no numerical values. Its broad point is that policy is increasingly shaping the terms on which trade takes place. The question is not only whether goods can cross borders, but which routes, suppliers and production locations are considered secure.

The scramble to decarbonize adds another pressure to this reorganization. Batteries, turbines and electricity grids—the infrastructure of a net-zero world—depend on minerals mined and refined in just a handful of places. As countries seek to secure those inputs, the concentration of supply can place further tension on trade between blocs.

Restrictions on direct trade can also change routes without stopping goods from moving. When trade between rivals is blocked, goods may be rerouted and relabelled through third countries. “Rules of origin,” which determine where a product comes from, can then become a battleground, while the detours bring higher costs.

The distinction matters: trade can continue while its routes, labels and costs change. Governments are trying to secure production and resources; the graphic’s account of rerouting shows how goods may pass through third countries when direct trade is blocked. In this environment, rules of origin are not just paperwork: they become part of the contest over how goods are classified and where they are understood to come from.

The economy may take a few years to settle into this new reality. Rather than one dominant system, the forecast is for several centres of gravity, connected by overlapping networks of trade, investment and influence. Brazil, India, the Gulf states, Mexico and Vietnam are named as emerging centres of opportunity. The point is not a single replacement hub, but a more distributed landscape in which countries can become important through different overlapping connections.

That shift puts a premium on the ability to adapt. The graphic describes agility as strength and adaptation as a “superpower.” For governments, the emphasis on security, resilience and strategic autonomy means reconsidering where products are made, where resources come from and how critical technologies are secured. For firms, the same landscape makes the ability to secure supply chains and access talent, technology and critical resources central to competing. Investment in innovation is part of that challenge.

These priorities are linked: supply chains need to be secured, while innovation, talent, technology and critical resources shape the capacity to compete in a changing environment. The source does not present the emerging centres as interchangeable; it places them within a world of overlapping networks, where the ability to navigate those connections matters.

The defining challenge, then, is not simply navigating globalisation as it was. It is navigating its transformation: a system in which trade and investment continue, but are increasingly shaped by strategic priorities, multiple centres of influence and the need to adapt.