Editorial
Rather than mirroring the geo-economic fragmentation besetting the world, member states need to come together and negotiate favorable trade terms for the region as a whole.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro (center) hosts an informal consultation on July 21, 2026, during the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay, Metro Manila. (Reuters/Pool/Francis R. Malasig)
We have become used to living in a world that is divided rather than united by trade. Economic unilateralism is prospering in the absence of a fair and nonpartisan arbiter because the World Trade Organization, which never quite achieved that status anyway, is useless in its current state.Nothing is off-limits: tariffs and nontariff barriers (NTBs), subsidies and incentives, export bans, unilateral sanctions or any other tool in the box of neo-mercantilism.
Complicating matters further, global supply chains are increasingly viewed through how they benefit one or the other of the two economic superpowers, the United States or China, though the blunt reality of this zero-sum game is usually hidden behind benign-sounding neologisms like “friendshoring”.
