A New Global Economic Order

The global economic order will change permanently as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian war; in this context, the EU must already reckon with a less stable leading power in the United States since the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Under the Biden administration, the United States has emphasized a new confrontation between the West and political authoritarianism: here, Russia—at least under President Putin—and China will then be seen as linked political opponents. Accordingly, Germany and other EU countries will partly turn away from China economically, and the German and European economy would have to seek much stronger cooperation in Asia, for example with the ASEAN group—standing for one-third of China’s economic weight—than has been the case thus far. Even before the war, in 2021, with negotiations on a trade and technology treaty with the EU, the US has begun to strengthen certain sectoral transatlantic cooperation ties, while at the same time insisting on joint security considerations, for example in the digital economy; this represents a visible US departure from multilateralism, that is, the emphasis on the important regulatory role of the World Trade Organization. This development has largely remained hidden from the public in Europe until now. At the same time, the US is trying to conclude a new cooperation treaty with Asia-Pacific countries with a similar thrust under the Biden administration; that treaty was signed in 2022. For China, difficult questions arise, since an expansion of Russian-Chinese economic relations is by no means a substitute for shrinking economic and technological ties with the US, the EU, and the UK.