Earlier this year, fast-food executives began to use the term “two-tier economy” to describe the trend they were seeing of wealthier consumers splurging on burgers and fries while lower-income households pulled back. Last year, Amazon Web Services EMEA Managing Director Tanuja Randery said a bifurcated model was emerging in how startups versus established corporations adopted AI.
Now a new two-tier economy is emerging, and it’s not about the income levels of consumers or the surge of certain technologies, but rather about the integrity of global maritime trade.
As the Iran war enters its seventh month, global trade may be reaching a breaking point, and shipping authorities are warning of a new reality of shadow fleets emboldened by geopolitical tensions and protectionist policies that are splitting maritime entities into legitimate and illegitimate operations.
In a joint statement published on Tuesday, the Consultative Shipping Group (CSG), a consortium of maritime authorities across 18 shipping nations, cautioned continued chaos at sea would lead to this “two-tier” maritime system, “one governed by rules, the other by opacity.” That would undermine the structure of trade by sea, which makes up 80% to 90% of global trade. The cornerstone of the world economy, maritime trade accounts for more than 30% of the world’s GDP, about $35 trillion, and employs 41 million people in the U.S. alone.
