Re-wiring global trade: From tariffs to regional opportunity

Bloomberg Professional Services

The next panel examined the evolving architecture of global trade and the geopolitical realignments shaping capital flows. Dr. Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at Hinrich Foundation, described today’s environment as the beginning of a reorganization rather than the end of globalization. After roughly eighty years of economic integration that had governed global commerce, she noted, the system was “smashed” by protectionist shocks and political upheaval – April 2 marking the symbolic breaking point.

Governments have scrambled to manage disruption – cutting quick deals to buy time – but such patchwork fixes, she argued, cannot last. The real challenge now is to rebuild trade from the shards of the old order. We are not ending trade, Elms emphasized, but remaking it through new alignments and configurations that could eventually form the basis of a different global order. However, the shape of that order remains uncertain, with the transition slowed by overlapping shifts in climate policy, technology, and domestic politics.

Yet within this disruption lies opportunity: investors who grasp how fiscal realignment, sustainability mandates, and technological innovation intersect will be best positioned to identify the next winners.

Bloomberg’s global data and supply-chain intelligence equip managers to interpret these evolving dynamics in real time.