Global disruptions other than those named Trump

Finally, policymakers the world over see other reasons bringing on change

The world’s policymakers need to disentangle their feelings about Donald Trump from their efforts to address the challenges facing the global economy and US-Asia relations. It’s a tall order, but there are signs that they might be making progress.

Over the past year, I’ve been to a lot of conferences where everyone was focused on Trump and the disruptions he created or came to epitomise.

Yet last week, at the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils in Dubai, I noticed a more considered sense that Trump is as much symptom as cause, that there are long-term forces at work that have little to do with the US or its leader. Discussions focused more on technology, value chains, jobs and growth than US elections.

Even the topic of trade was distinctly less Trump-centric. People recognised that the open-market rhetoric of the 1990s had lost support across the US political spectrum.

Technology is reshaping the global supply chains that Trump’s policies have shaken. Some manufacturing and assembly will ultimately return to the US from China, or move to relatively US-friendly places such as Indonesia and Vietnam.

Yet 3-D printing could rearrange everything: If products can be made anywhere by downloading a design, why wait for something to arrive in pieces from Asia?

China is moving away from low-cost factories anyway. And it’s not clear that cheaper locales will get a chance to repeat its export-manufacturing success before automation and robots catch up with the development model that’s been a textbook for developing countries. China may have been the last country to manage it.

Speaking of robots, there was some divergence on how disruptive the next wave of automation will be. The issue itself isn’t new: Then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy made a speech in 1960 bemoaning the loss of factory jobs. Today’s labour futurists need to more carefully explore the distinction between revolution and evolution.

It’s even conceivable that the trade clash between the US and China evolves into something like a competition between computer operating systems. The idea is that America’s goal is to contain Chinese advances in artificial intelligence and get other countries to align with Uncle Sam’s operating system.

Everyone seemed to agree that Asia remains the world’s economic engine. It’s a narrative that could benefit from some scrutiny. After all, China’s rise over the past four decades has happened with a favourable, or at least benign, attitude from the US. Now that’s changing, and not just because Trump became president.

There’s more change in the world than Trump. Reminders of that are timely and welcome.