The liberal market is dead – we need the new NATO trade

It also has the President of the International Monetary Fund Crystalina Georgivia to cautionThe world explodes to competing blocs. The old vision of globalization collapsed. What appears to be a natural preparation for many in Europe was, in fact, a historical anomalies: a system based on the power of the American -led global system, which is imposed through institutions such as NATO and the Bretton Woods system. These scaffolds are shaken now.

The global market based on the rules that we have taken from it is to make way for the cohesion world. To move, the West needs a new type of alliance: NATO for trade.

End of economic illusion for 80 years

After the Second World War, the United States and its allies built an economic system designed to prevent the destabilizing chaos in the thirties of the twentieth century. Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Gatt were created to support global capitalism under the American leadership. Security was provided by the American military authority, blocked in NATO. Trade flourished. Likewise, Europe, which was recovered after the war and integrated by American guarantees.

When the Cold War ended, the illusion deepened that global capitalism could work independently of political geography. By the nineties, many believed that the market was self -organizing and enhancing peace by nature.

Today, with the return of the superpower competition, this illusion was shattered. Economic liberalism is no longer in line with the geopolitical reality.

We enter the mentality of the war economy – where national security is outperforming price efficiency. This shift was accelerated due to two shocks: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic rise in China.

For example, reliance on Europe on cheap Russian gas was left that when Russia was weapons in 2022, Germany was, in particular, betting on the logic of the market rather than geopolitical risks. Rating 2021 until Nord Stream 2 announced only months ago. The result: the energy crisis and a crazy dilemma of liquefied natural gas.

Away, while the West clung to the free market Orthodoxy, China spent contracts to build a ready -made economy. Under the “Made In China 2025” and “Military Fusion” initiatives, the main sectors were identified and moved to control, including rare land, batteries, solar energy and AI. Today, China produces More than 75 % From Li -Ion batteries and Almost all gallium in the world. It controls the supply chains of energy transmission – increasingly, the components of military power.

It is very important that China is not afraid to use market domination of political goals. In 2010, exports to Japan were reduced due to a dispute. Its green technical domination creates dependence in Europe and abroad. Recently, China has imposed gallium and germanium controls, and it is decisive to develop semiconductors worldwide.

In response to this transformation, by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Publicly argue For a more strategic shape than capitalism, reject free market models. Trade is no longer neutral. What matters is not just a cost, but control.

They are for 80 years, a new model appears

In short, we enter a new model for the first geopolitical and economic economy in eight decades.

The comfortable separation after the Cold War-when the markets seemed to be of utmost importance and history was supposed to end-had given way to a more rocky and Libyan environment.

But unlike the thirties of the twentieth century, the West is not with no insulation or isolation; We are wealthy and rubbed on this challenge. We must now take advantage of our strengths in a clear way.

The task is to update institutions and mentalism in a liberal order in the twentieth century to meet the most exciting reality of preserved in the twenty -first century.

If we succeed, it is not necessary for the geological economy to lead to a catastrophe, but it will require us to submit trade in the strategy – intentionally and intelligently – just as our ancestors did in the 1940s when they built a system that provides peace and prosperity for a long time.

The Trade Agreement in the European Union and the United States is this transformation

The inequality of the last European Union’s commercial deal, which has seen the mass swallowing the tariffs by 15 %, is an ideal example of this transformation. It also shows that Europe’s decades ago on the United States has become a strategic loophole.

This episode enhances the need for Europe and others to diversify our trade relations and value chains in a world of escalating economic coercion. You should push us to deepen partners beyond the Atlantic axis, without heavily dependent on China.

This is not the thirties of the twentieth century. Europe is still a rich, democratic and stable region. But post -war generations do not have a memory of peripheral disorder. We assumed that liberalism was permanent. We thought, “It is the economy, stupid.” We are now learning that the strategic power, not the market price, determines the results.

Defense is another example at a point. Until recently, most NATO members wear their clothes on armies. By 2021, only six achieved the goal of GDP by 2 %. This quickly changed after 2022. But the defense industries were arrested. A plan to send a million shells to Ukraine revealed that the ability of manufacturing in the European Union has decreased significantly. For decades, Europe has been improved for efficiency, not endurance.

The same applies to trade. German model from Wandel Durch Handel –Change through trade –Thinking. Berlin is now examining Chinese investments and reducing dependence on authoritarian suppliers. Throughout Europe, strategic self -rule is the new watch. But the transformation of the mentality only started.

NATO Trading: The next strategic task

Suppose the market liberalism that trade will bring peace. But today, trade is a tool for leverage. The new mantra should be flexibility – including building local capacity, even if it is more expensive. This is not a temporary modification. It is the new normal.

This new era requires new institutions. Just as NATO has been built to defend joint security, the West now needs a strategic alliance to defend joint economic sovereignty – NATO for trade – including countries such as Japan, South Korea and Australia.

Economic security must become a common goal, not just a national goal. The United States has already taken steps, with local investments in clean chips and technology, and prohibits major technology exports to China. Now, the European Union follows the example, with Chips The verb and the law of critical raw materials. This is necessary, but it is not enough measures. We must build an economic alliance for those who want, now.

This means joint investments, alignment rules, and collective protection of critical supply chains. This means accepting higher costs to protect long -term freedom. Cheap goods are not cheap if they make us depend on hostile forces and geopolitical energy games.

The task is not to retract global trade, but rather to rebuild it on strategic conditions. The free market cannot defend itself. Like peace, it should be protected by alliances.

The end of the economic liberalism, the return of the strategy

The liberal market died. He died when we stopped believing that trade was around the price. He died when the supply chains became battle jackets. He died when the autocracy retracted the interdependence while democracies were hesitant.

If we want to maintain prosperity, we must be ready to defend it – not only with tanks, but with treaties, definitions and trusted partners.

NATO Trading is not a metaphor. It is the next institution necessary in a world where trade is no longer safe from politics. If the West is able to build it, the liberal collapse of the market does not mean a decrease; It can be the beginning of a more flexible and secure economic system.

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