The New Geopolitics of Trade and Tech: Supply Chains, Strategic Competition, and Policy Responses
MTA
An analysis of how trade policy, technology decoupling, and economic statecraft shape global politics and domestic policy
The book examines how trade policy, technology decoupling, and economic statecraft have reshaped global politics and domestic policy, arguing that we have entered a new geopolitics of trade and tech where economic tools are used to pursue security objectives. It traces the shift from hyper‑globalization to a strategy of de‑risking, highlighting how supply chains—especially semiconductors—have become strategic battlegrounds due to geographic concentration, technological chokepoints, and the weaponization of interdependence. Chapters detail the architecture of semiconductor supply chains, the bottlenecks in lithography and materials, and the ways export controls, sanctions, and entity lists are deployed as strategic levers, noting both their intended effects and spillovers such as accelerated indigenous innovation and strained alliances.
Industrial policy has returned as a central response, with the United States, China, Europe, and key Asian allies deploying subsidies, standards, and public‑private partnerships to build domestic capacity in chips, critical minerals, and clean‑tech while seeking strategic autonomy. The work explores how alliances and minilateral frameworks like the Quad, the U.S.–EU Trade and Technology Council, and the Indo‑Pacific Economic Framework aim to coordinate export controls, share early‑warning information, and set interoperable standards, balancing resilience with the desire to avoid full decoupling. It also addresses the geography of production through friendshoring, nearshoring, and reshoring, and the growing importance of critical minerals, digital trade, data governance, and standards wars in 5G and AI.
Finally, the book offers a toolkit for measuring dependence and risk, outlines corporate strategies under fragmentation, and discusses climate resilience and crisis management. It concludes with a prescription for cooperative competition: invest strategically in domestic capacity, diversify through trusted partners, enhance supply chain transparency, apply export controls with precision and multilateral coordination, harmonize technology standards, uphold responsible innovation norms, engage the Global South as partners, and establish clear guardrails and communication channels to manage escalation. This approach seeks to preserve the benefits of global specialization while reducing vulnerabilities that could be exploited in strategic rivalry.
The book targets policymakers seeking design principles for targeted economic controls and alliance coordination, business leaders needing guidance on compliance, supply-chain diversification, and strategic positioning under multiple regulatory regimes, investors assessing geopolitical risks in critical technology sectors, and researchers/students looking for a framework to understand how markets, technology, and security interlock in the new geopolitical landscape.
June 1, 2026
45,051 words
3 hours 9 minutes
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