Supply Chains Are Breaking. They’ll Rebuild Stronger
A series of global crises have highlighted an urgent need to diversify the framework for trade and manufacturing away from China.
Trade shifts.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergPick a single item from an array of shocks and you can see just how fragile global supply chains truly are. But combine climate change, decoupling from China, unprecedented technological development, wars, rising costs and labor shortages, and we now have an amalgam of catalysts that will change global trade for the better.
The pandemic is seen as the primary cause for many of the disruptions over the past four years. A halt to flights, factory shutdowns in China, and surges in demand for specific products broke supply chains. Yet the weaknesses were already there, hidden by an often improvised interplay between manufacturers, shippers, logistics providers and retailers.