The idea that the world connected through trade and technology is coming to an end is seriously at odds with evidence and common sense.

That extravagant pessimism about the historical process of globalization is mainly a result of deepening security fault lines between the U.S.-led West and the developing world of Global South.

A legitimate concern no doubt, but the fears of major and lasting trade disruptions are based on an error of judgement.

The empirical evidence shows that the actual trade volumes are determined by demand and output; geopolitical tensions only affect directions of global trade flows.

For example, the average growth of world economy over the last three years (2020-2022) was 2.1%, while the growth of the world trade, during the same period, came in at 2.7%. That’s a remarkable correspondence despite the cyclical turbulence caused by the COVID pandemic, and virulent U.S.-China political and economic clashes.

Diplomacy for peace and economic development

An even better example of that correspondence is provided by a seven-year period between 2013 and 2019, when both the world GDP and the world trade grew at an average rate of 3.4%.

Now, proponents of the end of globalization will dismiss these examples as part of history. They are obsessed with bombastic claims of “tectonic shifts,” a “new world order” and “the edge of a precipice” toward a “nuclear confrontation.”

All that because of what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, China’s defense of its maritime borders, BRICS consolidation and its overwhelming appeal to Global South.

Those are serious issues, but nothing Washington’s diplomacy cannot deal with.

The U.S. and Russia can, and probably will, find technical solutions to secure Moscow’s western borders while transcending centuries old madness of European hatreds.

Similarly, the U.S. has agreed with China -- during a summit in Indonesia last November -- on all key bilateral issues, including a one-China principle regarding the status of Taiwan.

On trade, China should understand that banning exports of “dual use” technologies, such as advanced chips, are matters of American national security. Those are part of routine procedures in foreign trade relations.

The U.S. has also assured China on many occasions, and at all levels of government, that it does not want trade decoupling. Perhaps the next U.S.-China summit should reaffirm Washington’s commitment to China trade -- while pursuing a “competition with guardrails.”

Much more work has to be done on broader trade and security issues.

BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) -- along with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and a de facto merging of Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) -- are serious players on a global political chessboard.

U.S. and BRICS for better world governance

BRICS has been wrongly dismissed for its heterogeneous membership, Sino-Indian border clashes, India’s allegedly Western leaning “strategic autonomy,” etc. BRICS countries have now shown unity on new membership criteria and admission of Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

With 11 members, BRICS represents 46% of humanity and accounts for 37% of global GDP. There is also a large number of new applicants that Russia seems eager to admit to some forms of partnership when it takes over the group’s presidency on January 1, 2024.

So, Global South – with 85% of world population and 40% of global GDP -- will remain BRICS’s captive audience. It will also offer support for reforms of the United Nations and its Bretton Woods institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund) the Secretary General Antonio Guterres talked about during the last BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

That will be part of a changing world order, but none of it will threaten world trade and globalization. BRICS has committed to economic development and peaceful coexistence. That is the essence of its mission to rescue poverty-stricken countries of the Global South from hunger, violence and crumbling infrastructure.

In that context, the idea that BRICS will sideline the dollar in global trade and finance is far-fetched – to put it mildly. Some intra-BRICS trade will continue to be done in national currencies, but more comprehensive currency transactions are impossible without extensive institutional changes. The group’s finance ministers will report on that to the next BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in September 2024.

A fortiori, a BRICS currency is out of the question. If such an objective is ever established, BRICS would first have to become a customs union with a unique market for goods and services, transfers of sovereignty to a central authority, etc. – things even difficult to imagine at this point.

A more immediate task will be for the U.S. and BRICS to start talking peace, trade and a more efficient world governance.