Section
Trade & Industry
Trade, industry, value chains, industrial policy, competitiveness and sectoral transformation.
30 published articles
Overview
The Trade & Industry section examines trade, value chains, industrial policy, competitiveness and the transformation of productive sectors. It places corporate strategy, public policy, critical dependencies and the shifts connecting markets with industrial capacity in context.
Featured
China: The Sovereignty of Machines
China's decision to block SoftBank's acquisition of ABB's robotics division reveals a new frontier of industrial sovereignty. As robots become instruments of learning for artificial intelligence, their ownership is no longer merely a matter of corporate strategy. It increasingly
AnalysisRecent publications
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Trade & IndustryAI Is Driving Global Trade: Who Makes the Equipment, and Who Captures the Value?
As geopolitical tensions disrupt energy routes and major powers seek to secure their strategic industries, global trade is experiencing an unexpected acceleration.
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Trade & IndustryAI: The Machines of the Next Decade Are Being Ordered Today
ASML has warned that its planned manufacturing capacity will not be sufficient to meet customer demand in 2027 and 2028.
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Trade & IndustryUnited States: The Arsenal Becomes an Industry Again
At Sparrows Point, near Baltimore, the ground still carries the memory of America’s former industrial power. For much of the twentieth century, this vast stretch of land on the Chesapeake Bay was one of the centers of gravity of U.S. steelmaking.
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Trade & IndustryOutsourcing: Who Keeps the Value?
A factory opens. Machines arrive, recruitment begins, and the first components roll off the production lines. The government announces the investment, the international group celebrates a new industrial site, and national statistics soon record higher production and exports.
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Trade & IndustryChina–United States: Dependency as a Weapon
Sometimes, a single aircraft component is enough to reveal the true state of relations between two great powers.
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Trade & IndustryGlobal Trade: The Chinese Clause Is Gradually Replacing the Common Rule
In Milwaukee on September 30, ministers gathered to discuss the global steel crisis were not merely talking about blast furnaces.
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Trade & IndustryWashington and Beijing Organize Their Economic Coexistence
Sixty billion dollars may appear modest compared with the scale of trade between the world’s two largest economies. Yet the commercial arrangement unveiled by Washington and Beijing in late September may ultimately matter less for the goods it covers than for the architecture it begins to establish.
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Trade & IndustryAI: Texas Discovers the Physical Limits of Compute
In Texas, a waiting list has become larger than the system it is asking to access.
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Trade & IndustryRussia: Western Assets Under State Control
For more than four years, Western companies that remained in Russia operated under an uncomfortable but relatively clear equation.
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Trade & IndustryBig Pharma: The Power and Fragility of the Drug Giants
For decades, the power of a pharmaceutical company could be measured by the breadth of its portfolio. Dozens of medicines, several therapeutic areas, large research organizations and global commercial networks allowed major groups to spread their risks. One drug could disappoint without threatening the entire company.
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Trade & IndustryLuxury: The Economics of Scarcity
There are few industries in which selling less can be a sign of strength, raising prices a way of protecting demand, and refusing a customer an instrument of value creation. Luxury belongs to this peculiar category.
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Trade & IndustryThe Power of Standards
A company may manufacture a good product, sell it at a competitive price and still find itself locked out of a market. It may lack a recognised test, sufficient traceability, financial statements prepared under the expected framework or evidence that its suppliers meet certain requirements.