If "decoupling" and "de-risk" are the buzzwords for 2022, an obvious buzzword for 2023 should be "fragmentation."
As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on, the threat of global warming grows, and inflation driven by key commodities such as oil, gas and food continues to undermine the recovery, anxiety is growing among leading economic institutions about the damaging fragmentation of the global economy.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned that many countries are now "going their own way at their own pace" and that "economic fragmentation could further undermine growth prospects."
In August, IMF economists estimated that rising trade restrictions could reduce global economic output by 7 percent, or about $7.4 trillion. "A fragmented global economy is likely to get worse," they said. After successive shocks over the past three years that have wiped some $3.6tn off the global economy, the IMF's message is clear: we cannot afford deeper divisions and must immediately return to multilateral co-operation.
Last week, the World Trade Organization expressed similar concerns. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the organisation's director general, said: "The fragmentation of the global economy will only make the challenges worse... Without a stable, open, predictable, rule-based and fair multilateral trading system, the global economy, especially the economies of poor countries, will struggle to recover."
The WTO's October update to its Global Trade Outlook report said global goods trade had declined since the fourth quarter of 2022 and halved its trade growth forecast for 2023 from 1.7% to 0.8%. Thus, the WTO has seen clear warning signs of fragmentation.
Intermediate trade - in which goods are exported not to consumers in a destination market but to the next country along a global supply chain - is a manifestation of global economic integration. The study shows that in the first half of 2023, intermediate trade accounted for just 48.5 per cent of global trade - below the 51 per cent average of the past three years. This is clear evidence of a shortened and simplified supply chain.
On the bright side, however, the WTO report also said that some measures resulting from the trade conflict "have triggered some changes in international trade patterns, but there is evidence that they have had a limited impact on globalization trends."
The share of US trade in intermediate goods with Asia was 38 per cent, down from 43 per cent in the first half of last year but little changed from 39 per cent in 2019.
Indeed, it is as difficult to analyse or interpret global trade and investment trends now as it has been at any time in the past 30 years. Economists need to be brave enough to judge whether the change in trade patterns is due to fragmentation and decoupling, or the three-year pandemic, or the surge in inflation over the past four years - oil prices are up 38 per cent since 2019 and gas prices in Europe are up 133 per cent. Food prices rose 46 per cent and fertiliser prices 93 per cent.
But they knew intuitively that the danger was serious. It is hard to believe that the Russia-Ukraine war has not had a hugely divisive effect on the pattern of global economic integration. Likewise, the United States' "Made in America" policies and subsidies, its technological war with other powers, and its reversal of decades of multilateralism are having an impact on the global economy.
Other evidence of severe fragmentation is clear. Since the WTO's trade dispute settlement system ran into trouble, trade restrictive measures have surged, with an average of 500 new restrictions introduced annually from 2013 to 2017, rising to 1,500 in 2020 and 2,800 last year.
According to Reuters, 29 international trade disputes cannot be resolved due to the marginalization of the WTO's dispute settlement system. The number of formally reported "trade concerns" by WTO members has increased from 31 in 2016 to 130 last year. Keith Rockwell, a longtime head of communications at the WTO, noted that the organization is in danger of falling into the abyss of neglect.