Rethinking global trade in a time of geopolitical tensions
For much of this century, the multilateral system established after World War II has been corrupted and hijacked by a cohort of wealthy, powerful nations that are reshaping the (so-called) global rules-based order and redefining what cooperation, justice, shared prosperity and stability are. Leading the charge is the United States of America, which, through the combined power of capital and military might, is bypassing collective rules and imposing unilateral decisions that are fundamentally reshaping global politics and trade. This has led to a fragile international system where all rules are changeable and brute power determines outcomes.
This is not to say that the besieged international/multilateral system is fair, equitable or democratic. Its foremost bodies—the UN Security Council, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO)—have long been instruments to advance the interests of former colonial powers. The bitter irony nowadays is that even the rules imposed by these institutions are in disarray.
Global trade and investment—whether negotiated through WTO agreements, bilateral Free Trade Agreements or Strategic Economic Partnerships—have morphed into weapons in geopolitical conflicts. Tariffs, sanctions, and financial restrictions are wielded not to correct trade imbalances but to exert ruthless political pressure and vanquish nations and peoples. Economic measures target those who dare to chart any alternate path to global capitalism and fascist ideologies.
As the latest war in West Asia shows, these actions ripple far beyond the nations involved. For developing countries, the consequences are devastating. Fluctuating tariffs, aggressive sanctions, and volatile commodity prices threaten working-class livelihoods, strain food systems, and deepen dependence on increasingly unreliable external markets.
Small-scale producers and workers—the backbone of local economies—find themselves caught in a vice of global price swings, escalating production costs and decreasing incomes.
When economic policies are driven by imperial and settler colonial ambitions, the expectation of fair and equitable trade evaporates. Cuba, Palestine, and Venezuela illustrate how trade weaponization combined with colonial assertions leads to the collective punishment of peoples.
However, this moment of crisis also offers a critical opportunity. As faith in existing systems wanes, countries and social movements are rising to demand a renewal of genuine multilateralism—one based on cooperation rather than oppression, and on participatory democracy rather than opaque representation.
Focus on the Global South, La Via Campesina
