Global geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions are intensifying as nations compete for economic dominance and political influence. Trade policy, monetary policy, technology, and supply chains have become instruments of strategy rather than neutral tools of efficiency, and small countries like Jamaica must be careful in how they navigate these opaque waters. For the Caribbean, exchange rates, energy prices, tourism demand, remittance flows, and capital movements are increasingly shaped by forces beyond domestic policy control. Macroeconomic management is no longer purely economic; it is geopolitical.

For context, after the Second World War, guided by the principles of absolute and comparative advantage, globalisation was embraced as the pathway to higher growth. Cheaper labour and resources abroad could reduce production costs at home, while domestic workers specialised in higher-value activities. Openness was promoted as progress. Free trade became more than policy; it became the philosophical foundation of modern economics under the neoclassical paradigm.

Developing countries were lectured on the virtues of liberalisation and open markets. Yet within the promotion of free trade and the neoclassical paradigm, the architecture of global economic rules was quietly asymmetric. Many multilateral agreements and United Nations frameworks were designed in ways that systematically disadvantaged small states, even as they were presented as neutral instruments of global progress. Bilateral trade arrangements often locked developing countries like Jamaica into structural roles as exporters of raw materials and importers of high-value goods, limiting their ability to climb global value chains. Liberalisation was encouraged, but industrial upgrading was constrained. The rules were universal in language, but unequal in effect. Globalisation was not merely an economic process; it was an institutional hierarchy.

It is against this backdrop that China’s rise must be understood. While the West focused on securing cheaper goods from abroad, China positioned itself as the world’s primary manufacturing engine. What began as integration evolved into dependence. China absorbed technology, built industrial capacity and climbed the value chain. Today, China accounts for roughly 30 per cent of global manufacturing output, while the United States’ (US) share has declined from about 28 per cent in 2000 to around 16 per cent, illustrating a profound structural shift in industrial power. The United States outsourced efficiency and imported dependence; China imported technology and exported dominance.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents more than infrastructure financing. Since its launch in 2013, the BRI has expanded to more than 150 countries and mobilised hundreds of billions of dollars across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. By investing in ports, roads, energy systems, and digital corridors, China has altered the logistical constraints that historically trapped small economies at the margins of global trade. For many developing countries, the BRI is not simply about capital; it is about connectivity, bargaining power and strategic relevance in a world where logistics increasingly determines economic destiny.

Globalisation created wealth, but it also created asymmetry—and asymmetry in economics eventually becomes insecurity in politics. As China accumulated real industrial power, the old order began to question the very rules it had designed. The neoclassical consensus is shifting. Tariffs once condemned as distortions are being repurposed as strategic weapons. Protectionism, once associated with economic backwardness, has become an instrument of geopolitical power.

The hegemon that preached liberalisation now practises strategic protectionism, rewriting the practical meaning of neoclassical economics. This insecurity increasingly defines US behaviour. Beyond raising tariffs on Chinese goods, the United States has imposed restrictions on advanced semiconductor exports to slow China’s technological ascent. China’s response has been structural: accelerating domestic chip production, expanding state support for innovation and reducing reliance on Western supply chains. Across the global economy, nations are prioritising self-sufficiency in critical sectors such as technology, energy, data, and defence. Globalisation is not disappearing; it is being recalibrated.

Even within emerging alliances, unity is more rhetorical than real. BRICS is often portrayed as a coherent counterweight to Western dominance, yet each member state is guided by its own strategic calculus. Russia seeks leverage through energy and security. China pursues industrial and technological supremacy. Brazil balances autonomy in trade and climate diplomacy. India is deepening economic ties with the European Union to diversify its options. In the new order, alliances are fluid and loyalty is conditional.

A similar logic is visible in North America. Canada is no longer merely an extension of the United States’ economic orbit. Its expanding engagement with China and other partners reflects a quiet recalibration of national interests. Energy geopolitics further exposes the fragility of the old order. The renewed engagement between the United States and Venezuela reveals how strategic imperatives override ideology.

Geography itself is being revalued. Iceland, once peripheral, has acquired strategic importance as Arctic shipping routes expand, undersea data cables multiply and NATO recalibrates its security posture. The broader lesson is clear: in the emerging geoeconomic order, location matters again. Small states with strategic geography—Singapore, Panama, Iceland, and the Caribbean—are acquiring renewed relevance.

For Jamaica, these shifts are immediate and consequential. The United States remains its dominant trading partner, while China has emerged as a major source of imports and a growing strategic partner, exposing the country simultaneously to Western financial cycles and to the reconfiguration of global supply chains driven by emerging powers.

Yet within this turbulence lies opportunity. The fragmentation of globalisation is elevating logistics and strategic positioning, and the Caribbean occupies a unique intersection of trade routes, financial flows and geopolitical interests. Jamaica’s advantage is therefore structural, not incidental. It is not merely a small island economy, but a potential logistics hub, digital gateway and financial intermediary in a multipolar world. As nearshoring accelerates in the Americas, proximity and neutrality become assets, and the region can reposition itself from periphery to pivot—mediating global flows rather than merely absorbing global shocks.

The paradox of the new order is that power is no longer defined solely by size, but by position. The world is not abandoning globalisation; it is renegotiating it. The decisive question is no longer whether the global order will change, but who will understand its new logic early enough to benefit from it.

Andre Haughton is a Professor of Economics at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, specialising in international finance, global political economy, the structural challenges facing developing economies, and development in small states. He is the author of Overcoming Productivity Challenges in Small Countries: Lessons from Jamaica and Developing Sustainable Balance of Payments in Small Countries: Lessons from Jamaica. He has been recognised as the University of the West Indies’ Most Outstanding Researcher (2017) and for the Most Outstanding Research Project (2023), was named UWI Alumnus of the Decade (1999–2009), and is an IMF Distinguished Academic Fellow. Beyond academia, he is engaged in entrepreneurship, youth development initiatives and strategic economic thinking aimed at advancing Jamaica’s development trajectory.