Commentary: Globalization’s Old Story No Longer Explains the World

1. Globalization is slowing as the international order shifts from "Pax Americana" to "America First," with governments moving toward narrower defense, trade, and supply-chain pacts, and a new relationship of equals with China has emerged after Washington rejected Beijing’s proposal in 2013. [para. 1][para. 2][para. 3]

2. At the turn of the century, Thomas Friedman’s book *The Lexus and the Olive Tree* framed globalization as a struggle between the pursuit of prosperity (Lexus) and the preservation of traditional identities (olive tree), giving rise to theories like the “Golden Arches Theory” (commerce reduces conflict among middle- and high-income countries) and “democratic peace” (democracies avoid war with each other). [para. 5][para. 6][para. 7]

3. Those theories, based on wealth accumulation and material prosperity, have become less convincing as globalization has slowed and the global order has moved from “Pax Americana” to “America First,” making the world’s story today more layered, complex, and full of detours. [para. 8][para. 9]

4. The first feature (layers) is the near-stalling of grand multilateral frameworks. The World Trade Organization is struggling, the annual UN climate meetings have produced limited progress, and the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are faltering—the WHO 2026 report shows the world is off track for all health-related SDG targets, with defense spending cuts to international aid worsening development indicators. [para. 10][para. 11][para. 12][para. 13]

5. In place of multilateralism, governments are turning to bilateral and plurilateral arrangements. Australia, for example, has signed multiple bilateral free-trade agreements since 2020 (with India, UAE, Indonesia, Hong Kong SAR, Peru, and the EU) and joined the China-led RCEP; Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney also urged middle powers to unite as a stress response among “like-minded” countries. [para. 14][para. 15][para. 16]

6. The second feature (complexity) is that concerns over traditional culture and identity are no longer limited to developing countries. People in developed nations, long dominant in the global narrative, increasingly fear losing their central status—evident in Brexit’s “take back control” message, the recent “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration in London, U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s warnings of “civilizational suicide” due to departure from Christian values, and far-right parties leading opinion polls across major European countries. The olive tree of tradition has been replaced by a more defensive stance. [para. 17][para. 18][para. 19]

7. The third feature (detour) is that countries are borrowing each other’s approaches. Europe is pressing Chinese EV makers to build factories and transfer technology; former U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan used Chinese-style terms like “industrial policy” and “patient capital”; and Beijing’s emergence as a center of global diplomacy recalls Washington’s K Street narrative. [para. 20][para. 21]

8. During Donald Trump’s just-concluded state visit to China, the two sides affirmed a constructive strategic-stability relationship, meaning the U.S. has for the first time agreed to define its most important bilateral relationship on an equal footing—a concept Washington rejected in 2013 when China proposed a “new type of great-power relations.” Thirteen years later, a relationship of equals has arrived. [para. 22][para. 23]