, Columnist
Big Energy Has a Whole Other Climate Change to Worry About
The retreat of free trade threatens its business model too.
Not exactly clear skies ahead.
Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg
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One pocket-sized symbol of globalization is the iPhone; that California-by-way-of-China apotheosis of ocean-spanning supply chains. Alternatively, there’s the 41,000-tonne USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship currently deployed in the U.S. Navy’s Fifth-Fleet area, which takes in such tourist traps as the Strait of Hormuz and the waters off Yemen and the Horn of Africa.
Oil is the original global supply chain, exemplifying the free-trade arrangement struck at the end of World War II and backed by American naval muscle. Oil powers trade, relies on that trade, and straddles trade’s economic and geopolitical aspects.