How Geopolitical Tensions Reshape Trade Patterns: Geoeconomic Fragmentation, or China’s Big Manufacturing Push?

It has become received wisdom to consider the world economy as increasingly shaped by forces of fragmentation, resulting from geopolitical tensions and strategic competition between great powers, including through trade and industrial policies. This Ifri Paper reconsiders this narrative using international trade data. It shows that, far from being a widespread trend, geoeconomic fragmentation of trade flows is only significant in "hotspots"; that is, for Russia's foreign trade and for China-United States bilateral exchanges. Outside these hotspots, there is no tangible sign that geopolitical tensions have been shaping international trade blocs, nor is there any hint of a trend toward nearshoring – on the contrary, in fact. There is no evidence either that competing industrial policies have been reshaping trade patterns. The clearest trend is much more specific: it is the massive surge in China's surplus in manufactured goods trade, up to 11% of the world's total or these products since early 2023. Sudden and common to all main directions and all main sectors, this push has been policy-driven. As economic security concerns reinforce governments' focus on manufacturing, this has become a major challenge to international coordination.