THE END OF GLOBALIZATION OR THE BEGINNING OF A NEW GLOBALIZATION?
By Publio Junior-Fragata Internacional
A reflection on Donald Trump, American reindustrialization, and the transformations of international trade
October 2026
In recent times, we have heard an increasing number of analyses announcing the so-called end of globalization.
This argument has gained strength with Donald Trump’s trade policies, particularly the imposition of tariffs on imported products and the effort to bring industrial production back to the United States.
One of the ideas advanced in this debate is that globalization primarily benefited large American companies, allowing them to produce, invest, and accumulate profits abroad, while the United States lost factories, jobs, and part of its industrial capacity.
There is foundation in part of this concern.
However, are we really witnessing the end of globalization?
My interpretation is that globalization is not coming to an end. What is happening is a profound transformation of the model of globalization we have known in recent decades.
And there is a gigantic difference between these two things.
1. GLOBALIZATION IS NOT SIMPLY A POLITICAL CHOICE
Globalization is the consequence of something much larger: the economic, technological, industrial, and financial interdependence among countries.
Consider a simple example: a Boeing airplane.
Its manufacture depends on an extensive chain of suppliers, technologies, raw materials, components, and services that crosses American borders.
The same is true for a car, a smartphone, a medicine, and virtually any modern industrial equipment.
To truly end globalization, it would be necessary to undo a large part of these interdependencies.
This would be extremely costly, inefficient, and, in many sectors, practically unfeasible.
Governments can create barriers to globalization, but they cannot easily eliminate the economic and technological reasons that produced it.
Globalization did not arise solely from government decisions. It is also the result of technological advances, productive specialization, reductions in logistics costs, international communication, and the pursuit of economic efficiency.
These factors continue to exist, regardless of political changes.
2. THREE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING
It is important to separate three phenomena that are frequently treated as if they were the same thing.
DEGLOBALIZATION
This is the effective reduction of international economic connections.
It may involve a decrease in trade flows, international investment, and the integration of productive chains.
In comprehensive deglobalization, economies become less interdependent.
ECONOMIC FRAGMENTATION
This is the division of commercial, financial, and technological relations into different groups of countries, frequently influenced by geopolitical interests.
Countries continue to trade internationally, but they privilege certain partners and restrict relations with others.
Globalization remains, but with higher barriers between certain economic blocs.
REGLOBALIZATION
This is the reorganization of globalization.
Companies do not necessarily stop producing internationally. They modify their supply chains, relocate factories, diversify suppliers, and establish new trade routes.
In my interpretation, the last two concepts better explain the current moment.
For example, when an American company transfers part of its production from China to Mexico, this does not necessarily mean it has stopped participating in the global economy.
It means it has changed the geography of its productive chain.
Globalization has not disappeared. It has changed address.
It is important to note that these three phenomena can coexist. Certain sectors may experience deglobalization, while others undergo fragmentation or reglobization.
3. DONALD TRUMP’S ARGUMENT: GLOBALIZATION GOOD FOR COMPANIES BUT BAD FOR THE UNITED STATES?
This argument deserves attention.
An American company can greatly increase its profits by producing abroad, while certain American industrial communities lose factories, jobs, and income.
But we need to distinguish three things:
- The profit of an American company.
- The economic benefit received by the United States.
- The distribution of that benefit among workers, shareholders, consumers, and regions of the country.
These three things are not equivalent.
A company can enrich its shareholders, reduce the prices of its products for American consumers, and simultaneously harm workers in a particular industrial region.
Therefore, globalization can generate aggregate gains for a country without distributing those gains in a balanced way.
This helps explain part of the political dissatisfaction that drives proposals for reindustrialization.
But it is necessary to examine the other half of the story.
An American multinational that produces abroad does not automatically leave all economic benefits outside the United States.
Its profits can finance American investments, remunerate American shareholders, or support research, engineering, technology, and distribution activities within the country.
On the other hand, they can also be reinvested abroad.
It is necessary to distinguish where a company produces, where it obtains profit, where it pays taxes, and where it reinvests its resources.
Moreover, multinational companies can maintain high-value-added activities on American soil even when part of the manufacturing occurs internationally.
Globalization can benefit a company without equally benefiting all sectors of society. But this does not mean that its economic benefits remain entirely abroad.
This is one scene. It is not the entire movie.
4. CAN TARIFFS BRING INDUSTRY BACK?
Tariffs can incentivize domestic production, but they do not guarantee its return.
To rebuild an industrial chain requires skilled workers, suppliers, infrastructure, energy, capital, technology, and competitiveness.
A factory does not function in isolation.
It depends on a network of suppliers and service providers that often took decades to develop internationally.
In addition, there is an important question: the cost of production.
Producing again in the United States may require high investments, especially in labor-intensive sectors.
Tariffs can protect certain manufacturers, but they can also raise the costs of raw materials, components, and equipment imported by American industry itself.
Consequently, a policy intended to protect one sector can increase the costs of another.
It is also important to differentiate two industrial strategies:
Reshoring: bringing back to the country of origin a productive activity previously carried out abroad.
Nearshoring: transferring production to geographically close countries, reducing distances and logistical risks.
Nearshoring can strengthen regional integration without necessarily increasing production within the United States.
Reindustrializing a country is much more complex than simply raising taxes on imported products.
5. WORLD TRADE DATA AND THE THESIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF GLOBALIZATION
International statistics allow us to evaluate whether world trade is effectively disappearing.
In its October 2026 update, the World Trade Organization presented the following projections for the volume of world merchandise trade:
• 2026: +3.9%
• 2027: +4.1%
In the same update, projections for international trade in services pointed to growth of 3.3% in 2026 and 6.4% in 2027.
These numbers are projections, not definitive results, and can change according to economic and geopolitical conditions.
Even so, they are incompatible with the idea that international trade is simply disappearing.
These numbers do not mean that everything is fine.
There are trade tensions, tariffs, technological restrictions, geopolitical conflicts, and important risks to growth.
But they demonstrate a fundamental point:
Political fragmentation and growth in international trade can occur simultaneously.
Another relevant phenomenon is the strong growth of trade related to artificial intelligence. Demand for semiconductors, servers, and AI-enabling infrastructure has been a major driver of recent merchandise trade growth—accounting for a substantial share of the upward revision in the WTO’s forecasts. While discussions of the end of globalization continue, new technologies keep creating demand for international productive chains.
We are not facing a world economy that has simply stopped connecting.
We are facing a world economy that is modifying its connections.
6. CHINA CAN LOSE SHARE WITHOUT GLOBALIZATION ENDING
The reduction of American imports from China does not automatically mean that all of that production has returned to the United States.
Part of the productive chains can be transferred to other countries.
Mexico, Vietnam, India, Thailand, and other economies can take on functions previously concentrated in China.
This movement demonstrates the difference between deglobalization and reglobization.
The United States can reduce its dependence on China without necessarily reducing its dependence on international production.
The supplier changes.
The route changes.
The customs origin changes.
But the international operation continues to exist.
This also explains why foreign trade cannot be analyzed exclusively on the basis of commercial relations between two countries.
A reduction in bilateral trade does not necessarily represent an equivalent reduction in world trade.
It is possible for a productive chain previously concentrated in one country to be redistributed among several others.
7. THE REAL DANGER IS NOT THE END OF GLOBALIZATION
In my interpretation, the greatest risk is the weakening of the common rules that allow it to function.
If each country begins to establish trade barriers for reasons of national security, strategic subsidies, and political requirements, we may end up with international trade that is more expensive, less predictable, and more complex.
The multilateral trading system faces real difficulties.
And we may arrive at a curious situation:
International trade continues to exist and grow, but it becomes increasingly difficult to practice.
Those who work with logistics, customs clearance, tariff classification, and international transport perceive these transformations directly.
New tariffs, origin requirements, export controls, and regulatory changes can increase the costs and complexity of operations.
This does not necessarily mean less globalization.
It may mean a more fragmented, regulated, and politically conditioned globalization.
8. WHAT IF THE UNITED STATES ENTERS A RECESSION?
Even a possible American recession would not automatically mean the end of globalization.
A recession in the United States could reduce consumption, imports, and investment, producing important impacts on its trading partners.
But a national economic contraction is not the same thing as the disappearance of international economic relations.
World trade can grow unevenly.
Some regions may lose share while others gain.
Some sectors may contract while others expand.
Therefore, it is perfectly possible for one economy to face difficulties while other regions and segments of international trade continue to grow.
An American recession would be an important economic event, but it would not, by itself, constitute the end of globalization.
It is important to differentiate recession, economic slowdown, and structural transformation of international trade. They are related phenomena, but not equivalent.
9. REINDUSTRIALIZATION CAN OCCUR WITHOUT RECOVERING THE LOST JOBS
There is still a frequently forgotten question.
What would happen if the United States managed to bring its factories back, but they were highly automated and employed only a fraction of the workers of the past?
We would have reindustrialization, but not necessarily the recovery of the industrial jobs that were lost.
Contemporary industry depends increasingly on robotics, artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced production systems.
Therefore, rebuilding industrial capacity does not necessarily mean rebuilding the same industrial labor market that existed decades ago.
Producing again inside the country is not synonymous with employing the same number of workers again.
This distinction is fundamental for evaluating the results of any reindustrialization policy.
10. ARE WE WITNESSING THE END OF GLOBALIZATION OR THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN ECONOMIC HEGEMONY?
Perhaps this is one of the most important questions in the entire debate.
Are some analyses confusing the end of globalization with the transformation of American economic hegemony over the process of globalization?
Because they are completely different phenomena.
Globalization does not depend exclusively on the economic leadership of a single country.
Trade relations can reorganize, new industrial poles can emerge, and different economies can gain relative importance.
The weakening of one country’s position in certain sectors does not necessarily mean the weakening of worldwide economic integration.
Likewise, the strengthening of new commercial powers does not automatically represent the end of globalization.
It may represent a redistribution of its economic power.
11. CONCLUSION: THE END OF AN ERA IS NOT THE END OF GLOBALIZATION
I believe we are witnessing not the end of globalization, but the end of the idea that globalization would advance continuously, without major political obstacles.
The world can remain deeply connected and, at the same time, become more protectionist.
One thing does not exclude the other.
Governments can modify tariffs, incentivize domestic production, restrict investment, and try to reorganize their industrial chains.
But they cannot easily eliminate the relations of interdependence built over decades.
Globalization does not need to maintain the same routes, the same suppliers, or the same centers of economic power in order to continue existing.
It can transform.
It can regionalize.
It can fragment.
It can become more complex and more expensive.
But this does not necessarily mean it is coming to an end.
What we are witnessing may not be the end of globalization, but the birth of a new architecture of world trade.
And perhaps the greatest mistake is to try to understand this transformation by looking only at American tariffs, at the relationship between the United States and China, or at the results of certain multinational companies.
These elements are important, but they represent only parts of a much larger phenomenon.
We cannot confuse a scene with the entire movie.
References for consultation
• World Trade Organization (WTO) — Global Trade Outlook and Statistics, October 2026 update: https://www.wto.org
• International Monetary Fund (IMF) — studies on geoeconomic fragmentation: https://www.imf.org
• UNCTAD — reports on trade, investment, and global value chains: https://unctad.org
• Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) — data on American multinationals and international investment: https://www.bea.gov
Economic analysis and interpretation. Projections are subject to revision; the arguments presented do not represent a transcript of the video that motivated this reflection.
