9 articles

Trade

Country audits, trade lanes and the flows behind the headlines.

Trade Audit 004 · France

France's trade deficit collapsed from a record €161.7 billion in 2022 to €69.2 billion in 2025 — a 57% improvement in three years. The current account is essentially balanced.

4 Oct 20266 min read

Trade

Trade Audit 003 · Brazil

Brazil's trade surplus hit $59 billion in 2025 and is tracking toward $100 billion in 2026.

4 Oct 20267 min read

Trade

Trade Audit 002 · Australia

Australia sells rocks and gas to China, and buys cars and electronics from China. The trade structure has produced the fastest export growth of any advanced economy since 1990 — an 8.5× increase that generated a $30…

4 Oct 20267 min read

Trade

World Trade Hit $34.7 Trillion in 2025. Someone Forgot to Tell the Peak-Globalization Theorists.

The "peak globalization" thesis — that world trade has stopped outpacing GDP growth and the era of hyper-globalization is over — has been declared at least four times since 2008. Each time, trade has rebounded to new highs. The $34.65 trillion in goods and services traded in 2025 is the largest volume in history. The thesis persists because it conflates a noisy ratio with a structural shift, and because it misses a transformation happening on two fronts: what is being traded (services, growing at 8% a year) and who is doing the trading (intra-Asia and South-South flows are growing twice as fast as the global average).

4 Oct 20269 min read

Trade

China Would Need $150 Billion a Year to Halve Its Trade Surplus

The "boost Chinese consumption" prescription has become orthodox. Run through the numbers, it is directionally correct — but the mechanism it implies is structurally incoherent. A combined approach of import liberalization and targeted export rebalancing is the only arithmetic that works. It is slow, expensive, and politically uncomfortable in both Beijing and Washington.

4 Oct 20268 min read

Trade

Germany's Exports Hit $1.69 Trillion in 2025. The Surplus Machine Is Running Again, But the Foundations Are Shifting

In 2020, for the first time since the Bundesrepublik began tracking the data, Germany imported more motor vehicles and parts from abroad than it exported in value terms.

4 Oct 20264 min read

Trade

Korea's Exports Hit $709 Billion. Semiconductors Accounted for 25% of the Total

The AI boom delivered a record year. The concentration risk is the price of the ticket.

4 Oct 20263 min read

Trade

Mexico Overtook China as America's Top Trade Partner. It Still Keeps Only 65 Cents of Every Export Dollar

Nearshoring delivered a record $663.7 billion in exports. The value chain depth is stuck. The two facts are related.

4 Oct 20263 min read

Trade

Vietnam's Exports Grew 168× in 35 Years. Its Domestic Value Added Fell to 52%

The world's fastest-growing export economy is still assembling other countries' components. That's a vulnerability, not just a statistic.

4 Oct 20263 min read

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