Globalization's alive and well.

Is globalization punching back?
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Globalization's Ship Has Sailed… And Will Sail On!

Even before the US weaponized tariffs in its planet-wide trade war, the fate of globalization had been argued round and flat. Is there data to support one side or the other? Chris Bryant points out that A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S — the Danish shipping giant — has "reported surprisingly resilient demand outside the US and forecast global container volumes could increase by as much as 4% this year." The US may have helped kick off contemporary globalization after World War II, Chris says, but "it can't by itself turn back the clock on global economic interdependence. Prosperity gains from comparative advantage and low-cost container shipping are too great for the rest of the world to ignore."

The US may still be the market everyone wants to sell into, but there's another economic mover in the world today: China, which was the original focus of the trade war until Donald Trump decided to go mano-a-mano against everyone. Karishma Vaswani says Beijing has been preparing for this face-off for a while — and, while it hasn't avoided body blows, it seems to be on firmer footing than Washington. Says Karishma: "Despite Trump's insistence that China has taken significant steps to improve their trade relationship, Beijing has made no consequential concessions on any of his key concerns. (China has offered some small compromises, none on the scale of American demands.)"

It reminds me of Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope strategy, where he supported himself against the boxing ring's ropes while his opponent expended punching energy trying to knock him out. Ali only appeared to be "on the ropes"! Meanwhile, Karishma adds, "Washington's economic leverage is gradually eroding, as China pushes ahead with its strategy of self-reliance." 

At the same time, President Trump is trying to tackle everyone else. But lo! says Daniel Moss, almost everyone else is taking the road of least resistance, that is, they aren't putting up a fight. In fact, countries have lowered barriers to imported US products. So has Trump triumphed? Daniel notes: "His aides reckoned that access to the American market is too lucrative to pass up, and they may have been right. It would also be naive to conclude there won't be any cost. The global economy has slowed but hasn't crashed, foreigners still purchase US Treasuries and it's a safe bet that the greenback will be at the center of the financial system for years."

Trump's upheaval, Daniel says, "will be costly — even if the full price isn't immediately apparent… The nations humiliated won't forget this experience. Asia's economies will only get bigger and the siren call of greater integration with China will get louder."

Punch away, U.S.A.!

Jellyfish I have Known

One of my favorite cold appetizers at Chinese banquets is 海蜇, a Cantonese specialty. Pronounced hoizit in Cantonese and haizhe in Mandarin, it's jellyfish in plain English. I love its bounciness — a quality called Q, a kind of East Asian al dente — whether it's served with sesame seeds or cucumbers or a mix of both. The species most commonly used for the dish is Stomolophus meleagris — the cannonball jellyfish.

If only it were the cannonball jellyfish that attacked me off Capri one summer a long time ago, I might have seen it coming with its huge, round, almost cabbage-like top. Instead, the onslaught was a squad of much smaller, translucent stingers, moving swiftly into Italian waters from North Africa. If their bite weren't so painful, I'd almost say they were beautiful.

This is a long way of saying I empathize with the French power grid. As David Fickling notes, "A swarm of jellyfish linked to unusually warm waters in northern Europe caused French utility Electricite de France SA to shut two nuclear power stations." David says climate change — in the form of heat waves and drought —  is going to continue to disrupt energy supplies throughout the world. It can't all be blamed on jellyfish.

I have my revenge planned for the invertebrate, though: It will be a dish served cold.

Telltale Charts

"Denmark's Orsted A/S is once again the poster child for the woes afflicting the wind power sector. Once an industry darling valued more highly than oil giant BP Plc, its stock price has steadily dropped over the past few years as the company abandoned projects, cut jobs and lowered its financial targets. Now, investors are once again disappointed in Orsted, sending its stock plummeting to below its initial public offering price." — Lara Williams in " Orsted Is Symptomatic of What's Ailing Wind Power."

"The prospect of peace in Ukraine has created minimal impact on global markets, largely because the war has been dismissed as a stalemate since late in 2022. But Putin's disastrous invasion may have had the lasting effect of boosting gold's status… For circumstantial evidence that this has happened, look at the ratio of the gold price to US Treasuries… These are the two clearest and most proven shelters available to the world's investors. It certainly looks as though gold's advantages suddenly became much greater once the world had witnessed a return to war on the ground in Europe. " —John Authers in " Where Is Bessent Pulling These Rate Models From?"

Further Reading

JPMorgan Chase is going private. — Shuli Ren

Left behind by the global EV rapture. — David Fickling

ChatGPT-5 has a problem. — Parmy Olson

Corporate credit is beating government bonds. — Marcus Ashworth

What will Modi protect? Exports or agriculture? — Andy Mukherjee

Will Silicon Valley's Indian diaspora get the Intel treatment? — Mihir Sharma 

Walk of the Town: Down Ancestral Paths

While writing a piece this week on the poultry industry, I recalled the chickens I grew up with in the Philippines. My family lived in a residential compound in Quezon City,  where there was room for the birds to roam. And what gorgeous creatures they were. Not the white feathered, factory-barn zombies that go into our nuggets and barbecues. But brilliantly colored, cocksure roosters, just a branch or two down from the fierce and territorial red jungle fowl, the ancestor of all domestic chickens.

And I have an update about my own ancestry, for those who've read my post from last month. Nathan Co, a genealogist on Facebook helping overseas Chinese trace their forebears, sent me fascinating clues about my great-great-grandfather, Mariano Velasco, AKA Chua Chengco. 

A photograph of Mariano Velasco Chua Chengco. Image provided by Nathan Co/Chinese Ancestry Research

My relatives and I assumed he singlehandedly built the family fortune — an immense one that was frittered away by his progeny. Now, according to Co, Velasco was adopted by his biological father's childless brother — and that biological brother also moved to the Spanish-ruled Philippines from Fujian province in the mid-19th century to help him with the clan businesses. This heretofore unknown ancestor appears to have been instrumental in building the now-vanished mercantile empire. The difference is that Velasco's sibling did not take a Spanish surname and eventually returned to live in China.

A forgotten story recovered, with potential for melodrama. 

Drawdown

Does insomnia stalk you, too?

"I'm 6,212 years old, but sleep like a baby. I wake every hour fussy and demanding attention. And hungry, always hungry." Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg

Notes: Please send sleep hacks and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at [email protected].

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