Peter Zeihan

We haven't changed it since then.

Now, in my opinion, that cluster is exactly what we would have needed to generate mini globalization or globalization 2.0, whatever you want to call it.

The US was very well positioned to use that cluster of countries, maybe with a couple of others.

In order to make a smaller version of the global structure where we wouldn't have to sacrifice the technological level we've become used to or the standard of living we've become used to.

But Obama basically sat in the White House for eight years and did nothing.

Trump has been a very disruptive force.

And Biden was Biden.

So we're now in a situation where all of those relationships are degrading.

And if we can't re-solidify the NAFTA courts this year when they're up for renegotiation, we're going to be in a situation where a lot of these pieces suddenly won't work anymore.

From the American point of view, that means doing things more or less by ourselves.

And that means for steps of the supply chain that are not the things that we excel at, like, say, assembly, we have to take someone who earns $75,000 a year, the average American income, and all of a sudden have them doing die-cast and basic assembly, jobs that you probably shouldn't be paid more than $6,000 or $7,000 a year for.

That manifests, among other things, as a vastly lower standard of living or massively inflationary.

Those are basically our choices here.

For the rest of the world, without the United States providing the freedom of the seas and the rule of law that allows intermediate products to shift around, no one can specialize anymore.

And so you have a catastrophic reduction in what countries can do individually.

Maybe they can cut deals regionally, like, say, Southeast Asia.

Very bullish on Southeast Asia.

But it means that they lose the strength of the whole.

You no longer can export to a larger market to earn income to then update your industrial basis.

And that's the entirety of the Japanese, the Korean, and the Chinese models to this point.