Kai Ryssdal

It is kind of amazing and you cannot imagine.

You said you export 90% of your product, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

What's your biggest worry?

What's the thing that makes you most worried for your business?

He pointed to a box of clothes, headed to Jordan, eventually.

No sea lanes to go to Jordan right now.

Until you can ship it.

Once again, geopolitical instability.

The question, really, or one of them anyway, is whether geopolitical instability will become a big enough disadvantage to outweigh the economic advantages Vietnam has right now.

Because as Neil has said up at the top, its window of opportunity is not going to last forever.

Coming up tomorrow on this program, garage doors, American holidays, and Vietnamese factories.

This final note on the way out today, I'm not sure we needed the official validation, but sometimes it's just good to have what you think confirmed by people who actually study this stuff.

The International Monetary Fund was out with its latest World Economic Outlook today.

Here is the money quote from the organization's chief economist.

The global outlook has abruptly darkened following the outbreak of war in the Middle East, Pierre-Olivier Gornishaw wrote.

The war interrupted what had been a steady growth trajectory.

End of quote right there.

Global growth this year slows from 3.3 percent to 3.1 percent.