Cast adrift
World Commerce Review foreword
The year 2025 has witnessed an intensification of geopolitical fragmentation, propelled by decisive policy shifts in the United States under the Trump administration, alongside enduring conflicts and deep-seated structural rivalries. These forces have collectively accelerated a process of deglobalisation, manifesting in disrupted supply chains, escalating costs, and heightened financial volatility across the international economy.
The United States, long the architect of the post-war global order, has markedly retreated from its erstwhile commitment to globalism. This withdrawal has contributed to a growing polarisation within the multilateral system that once afforded a degree of stability. Norms, authority, and legitimacy are increasingly contested, exacerbated by the absence of unified global leadership and the erosion of collective purpose. In consequence, international institutions have struggled to mount effective responses to transnational challenges that demand coordinated action.
Amid this flux, a more pluralistic global landscape is emerging, characterised by the coexistence of established and novel institutions. Regional powers and middle-income states aspire to forge a more resilient and cooperative order through inclusive, rules-based frameworks that might reinvigorate multilateralism while enhancing national resilience.
Central to this reordering has been China’s ascent as a proactive actor and purveyor of global public goods, capitalising in no small measure on American retrenchment. Beijing has advanced alternative architectures, extending its influence both within extant institutions and through innovative ventures such as the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Global Development Initiative, and the Global Security Initiative.
A more pluralistic global landscape is emerging, characterised by the coexistence of established and novel institutions. Regional powers and middle-income states aspire to forge a more resilient and cooperative order through inclusive, rules-based frameworks that might reinvigorate multilateralism while enhancing national resilience
In so doing, China positions itself as a champion in addressing inequality and poverty, eschewing the Western insistence on democratic norms and human rights conditionalities. For many nations in the Global South, China’s pragmatic model offers compelling opportunities for greater agency within the international system. States across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, seeking infrastructure and economic advancement without the stringent preconditions often attached to Western aid, have found in Beijing an attractive partner.
The expanded BRICS grouping—now encompassing original members alongside Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—encapsulates many of these aspirations. Emphasising sovereignty, non-interference, and a development paradigm unencumbered by political strings, BRICS has, with China’s substantial backing, emerged as a vital conduit for South-South cooperation.
Yet the multipolarity now taking shape does not herald the wholesale supplanting of one hegemonic order by another; rather, it entails the parallel operation of overlapping frameworks. Nations of the Global South, while vocal in their critique of Western inconsistencies, remain cautious about excessive dependence on any single power. This strategic hedging may, paradoxically, engender a more equilibrated and responsive governance of global affairs.
Nevertheless, beneath these shifts lies an intensifying competition among the world’s three pre-eminent economic blocs: the United States, China, and the European Union. Europe, in particular, possesses attributes that have historically defined great powers—a $20 trillion economy, a population exceeding half a billion, premier universities, exceptional engineering prowess, world-leading infrastructure, vast capital reserves, and a currency that rivals the dollar in international transactions. By conventional measures, the European Union ought to rank as a geopolitical superpower. In nominal terms, the United States remains somewhat larger, while China is broadly comparable.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the American and European economies were of roughly equivalent scale, with China’s a mere fraction thereof. The intervening quarter-century has dramatically altered this balance. Recent assessments, including those in the United States’ 2025 National Security Strategy, warn that Europe’s relative economic stagnation is overshadowed by graver concerns—chief among them the prospect of profound cultural and civilisational transformation in the decades ahead.
Whether the European Union can arrest this drift and assert its latent potential remains one of the most pressing questions for the emerging global order.
