Geopolitics and Economic Security: The Shifting Paradigm of Global Resilience

Let’s say that the first few months of 2025 have been full of surprises. A zoom out on one of the hottest topics of the moment is necessary: economic resiliency. Here are a few insights compiled from leading think thinktanks and news articles with my own analysis.

International economic insecurity affects businesses and countries alike. As countries scramble to build robust Economic Security toolkits, companies must also adapt by including geopolitical risks in strategic risk/opportunity assessments. In today’s interconnected world, geopolitical risks are business risks.

Moreover, conflicts shape international business standards. Not only is it important to be secure, but conducting human business is also important. There is an urgent need for stronger corporate due diligence and improved working connections between business and state, especially when operating in fragile or conflict-affected states. There is already a base: The 2011 Ruggie Principles established a soft-law framework centered around three pillars:

The state’s duty to protect against human rights abuses by businesses,
Corporate responsibility to respect human rights,
Access to remedy for victims, both judicial and non-judicial.

A change might come with the Lundin Oil war crimes case in Sudan. If this case sets new jurisdictional precedents, it may impact investments in fragile and conflict-affected states. If successful, it would signal a profound shift: corporations would need to go beyond standard Ruggie compliance, adopting more proactive, conflict-sensitive due diligence models, a step toward a more sustainable and secure future.

This case is as important as ever as countries are improving their economic security toolkits to safeguard competitiveness, critical sectors, and infrastructures from geopolitical-economic shocks, working more closely with private companies to attain their goals. It is a great opportunity, while countries are reimagining their economic models, to use precedents that ensure human rights are respected.

Let’s start with China’s ES. Since 2014, China has been following a strategic self-reliance scheme. Having political security at its core with economic security as the foundation, it emphasizes the protection of strategic sectors, technological sovereignty, and resilient supply chains. It looks for the further creation of a domestic market in order to create more self-reliance. To this end, China needs to limit economic liberalization for its own sake by bringing the private sector under more political control of the party. At the same time, it looks to integrate within and climb up the global value chains as an indispensable driver of economic growth. A strong geo-economic example of this is the Belt and Road Initiative started in 2013.

This caused multiple reactions in Europe and in the US. The sharp difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration is unmistakable. Biden initiated an industrial “reset,” moving from a post–Cold War paradigm of largely market-driven globalization to one where public policy and strategic partnerships actively shape where and how the U.S.—and its allies—produce, connect, and innovate. Three laws are at its core: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($550 billion in new investment in infrastructure and transportation, broadband, power grids, water systems, ports, rail, etc.), the CHIPS and Science Act ($52 billion to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors, vitally important for tech), and the Inflation Reduction Act ($369 billion for clean energy and climate). This strategy’s goal was to reinforce supply-chain resilience, catalyze private investments in the US, and overall create less China-dependency through multilateral coordination, such as with G7 allies (Build Back Better World).

Trump, on the other hand, sees economic security as equivalent to national security and employs tariffs as one of his principal ES tools. Two reasons: Trump sees the WTO rule—that tariff concessions must be equally applied to all members—as unfair and advocates for tariff reciprocity. His second listed reason is the major trade deficit supported by the US. China (-$338bn), EU (-$192bn), Mexico (-$108bn). This is flawed thinking. Firstly, because it assumes that foreign countries are solely responsible for trade imbalance. It can also come from overconsumption, low national savings rates, and currency value issues. Those more structural causes will not be fixed by tariffs. Secondly, importers often pass the cost onto consumers, which results in higher prices. Where in 2018 tariffs on China increased the collection of tariff revenue at first, it also caused farmers to need massive subsidies due to Chinese retaliation.

Furthermore, Trump’s strategy could weaken the WTO by completely bypassing the WTO dispute mechanism, undermining the actual international system — maybe a goal of Trump?

His strategy also carries broader consequences. The US-EU trade tension, which resulted from retaliation, might be a good thing for Europe. European assets are more attractive due to the dollar’s instability, driven by Trump’s political instability. The euro is gaining strength (+5.4% vs. the dollar), and European military bonds and Germany’s trillion-dollar military/infrastructure stimulus boost investor confidence. Klaas Knot and other high-ranking officials are beginning to believe in the international role of the euro. Nevertheless, “the external strength” of the euro “is a reflection of internal strength” in Europe, and governments need to go further to increase that strength.

Speaking of Europe’s strengths. European countries are also busy with their ES tools. France already had a strong tradition of dirigisme and is well underway in its economic securitization. With the plan France 2030, it aims to secure raw materials, supply chains, strategic components, and digital sovereignty. The economic powerhouse of Europe, Germany, has more trouble, especially in the sense of de-risking from China due to industrial and political resistance.

What we are seeing is the realization of the consequences of economic liberalization in the 90s and the reversal of the laissez-faire mentality due to economic and geopolitical risks — not only coming from economic competitors like China but also unexpectedly from allies.
In this framework, the private sector has a growing role in ES and needs to work more closely with governments as geopolitics and economic security become increasingly intertwined. There is an increased divergence from traditional free-market globalization towards state-guided resilience strategies.

International Economic Insecurity affects businesses and countries alike. As countries scramble to build robust Economic Security toolkits, companies must also adapt by including geopolitical risks in strategic risk/opportunity assessments. In today’s interconnected world, geopolitical risks are business risks.

Moreover, conflicts shape international business standards. Not only is it important to be secure, but conducting human business is also important. There is an urgent need for stronger corporate due diligence, and improved working connection between business and state, especially when operating in fragile or conflict-affected states. There is already a base: The 2011 Ruggie Principles established a soft-law framework centered around three pillars:

The state’s duty to protect against human rights abuses by businesses,
Corporate responsibility to respect human rights,
Access to remedy for victims, both judicial and non-judicial.

A change might come with Lundin Oil war crimes case in Sudan. If this case sets new jurisdictional precedents, it may impact investments in fragile and conflict-affected states. If successful, it would signal a profound shift: corporations would need to go beyond standard Ruggie compliance, adopting more proactive, conflict-sensitive due diligence models, a step toward a more sustainable and secure future.

This case is as important as ever as countries are improving their economic security toolkits to safeguard competitiveness, critical sectors and infrastructures from geopolitical-economic shocks; working more closely with private companies to attain their goals. It is a great opportunity to, while countries are reimagining their economic models, to use precedents that ensure human rights are respected.

This caused multiple reactions in Europe and in the US. The sharp difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration is unmistakable. Biden initiated an industrial “reset”, moving a from a post–Cold War paradigm of largely market-driven globalization to one where public policy and strategic partnerships actively shape where and how the U.S.—and its allies—produce, connect, and innovate. Three laws are at its core the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($550bn new investment in infrastructure, and transportation, broadband, power grids, water systems, ports, rail, etc..), CHIPS and Science Act ($52bn to boost domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors, vitally important for tech) and Inflation Reduction Act ($369bn for clean energy and climate). This strategy’s goal was to reinforce supply-chain resilience, catalyze private investments in the US, and overall create less China-dependency through multilateral coordination, such as with G7 allies (Build Back Better World).

Trump, on the other hand, sees economic security as equivalent to national security and employs tariffs as one of his principles ES tools. Two reasons: Trump sees the WTO rule- that tariff concessions must be equally applied to all members- as unfair, and advocates for tariff reciprocity. His second listed reason is the major trade deficit supported by the US China (-$338bn), EU (-$192bn), Mexico (-$108bn). This is flawed thinking. Firstly, because it assumes that foreign countries are solely responsible for trade imbalance. It can also come from overconsumption, low national savings rates, and currency value issues. Those more structural causes will not be fixed by tariffs. Secondly, importers often pass the cost onto consumers, which results in higher prices. Where in 2018 tariffs on China increased the collection of tariff revenue at first, it also caused farmers to need massive subsidies due to Chinese retaliation.

Furthermore, Trump’s strategy could weaken the WTO by bypassing completely the WTO dispute mechanism, undermining the actual international system — maybe a goal of Trump?

His strategy also carries broader consequences. The US-EU trade tension, which resulted from retaliation, might be a good thing for Europe. European assets are more attractive due to the dollar’s instability, driven by Trump’s political instability. The Euro is gaining strength (+5.4% vs dollar), and European military bonds and Germany’s trillion-dollar military/infrastructure stimulus boost investor confidence. Klaas Knot and other high-ranking officials are beginning to believe in the international role of the euro. Nevertheless, “the external strength” of the euro “is a reflection of internal strength” in Europe, and governments need to go further to increase that strength.

What we are seeing is the realization of the consequences of economic liberalization in the 90s, and the reversal of the laissez-faire mentality due to economic and geopolitical risks — not only coming from economic competitors like China but also unexpectedly from allies.
In this framework, the private sector has a growing role in ES and needs to work more closely with governments as geopolitics and economic security become increasingly intertwined. There is an increased divergence from traditional free-market globalization towards state-guided resilience strategies.

What this will ultimately unveil remains uncertain. But zooming out on the situation, thinking about the global trends and putting them in historical context cannot hurt. Maybe even give some insights.