The tumultuous disruption of global supply chains, first crippled by the pandemic shutdowns and then further disrupted by war in Europe, has accelerated the collapse of the ever-weakening, decades-long consensus for global trade and economic globalization. From pandemicrelated lockdowns around the world to US port bottlenecks and rising gasoline and food prices, supply chain challenges have filled headlines and worried businesses, consumers, and public policy officials. “Just-in-time” production over the last 30 years has relied on global supply chains that needed to be reliable, secure, and efficient. The pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns reduced economic activity around the world, idling parts of supply chains that other parts needed to maintain production, undermining the resiliency of supply chains in an interconnected world.

Now, that world has changed. The initial impact of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, extensive economic sanctions, and Russia’s weaponization of supply chains has been compounded by global labor shortages, China’s zero-COVID lockdowns and global trade institutions’ inability to provide a level playing field for competition as China’s economy developed.

These crosscurrents have coalesced to further erode the already weakening confidence in global supply chains and a global trading system. For many companies, that means a push toward diversification and resilience, even redundance, in their supply chain management practices, including bringing supply chains closer to customers, reversing earlier trends toward globalization. And for major trading countries, and particularly for the US, that means a further intensification of trade policy focusing on regional and bilateral trade and a turn toward more broad consideration of on-shoring manufacturing of critical technologies and components.