Globalization, Tariffs, AI... Good Luck to Us All

I've had a variety of related thoughts bouncing around my head this year about the new era of global order and AI that we're all navigating in real-time. You can see the common threads, though none of them alone might warrant a full post. But as a collection? They make for some interesting dinner table conversation—and perhaps a criticism or two thrown my way.

• Globalization will take decades to unravel. I'm increasingly skeptical that full unraveling is even possible, but I do believe globalization is being tested to its limits
• The collapse of Bretton Woods, beginning in 1971 and culminating in 1973, ended the gold standard backing the US dollar and ushered in an era of free-floating currencies. By then, the dollar had already established itself as the world’s reserve currency of choice. As the global economy matured, this helped cement the US as the dominant economic power—and a massive beneficiary of globalization thanks to the dollar’s central role. A byproduct of this status was America's emergence as the de facto defender of democracies and capitalist societies worldwide, reinforcing its place in the global order
• Trump's tariff regime is a negotiation tactic aimed at improving America's global standing, often without much regard for other countries. If Trump has one core strength, it's negotiation. But a negotiator who never acts on their threats is ineffective. At some point, he'll have to show bite to back up the bark
• Tariffs are inflationary and a net negative for US citizens. I doubt they last beyond mid-year as early signs of economic slowdown appear. The cynical counterpoint? Some may perversely call it "a win" if the US suffers less than its trading partners
• There’s merit to the idea that America should demand fairer standing when it supports allies with financial and in-kind aid. At the same time, we’d do well to focus inward and address the domestic problems that have quietly accumulated over decades
• Among both Millennials (my generation) and Gen Z, I’ve noticed a growing sense of nationalism. It's driven by fiscal imprudence—namely, inheriting untenable levels of debt—and a belief that the US has plenty of its own issues to solve before rushing to rescue others every time we're called. It's not that we lack compassion; we're simply searching for balance
• America's greatest strength is its unmatched ability to attract talent from around the world. We should wholeheartedly embrace the immigration of brilliant minds and hardworking people. America's dominance in AI is inseparable from this advantage. The best minds want to come here, build here, and innovate here. Lose that edge, and we risk falling behind in the most important race of this century
• China is a formidable and worthy competitor. As a culture, they are smart, hardworking, and resourceful. Their government may be a homegrown version of communism that works for them—and frankly, who are we to judge?
• As a supply chain investor, one thing I know for sure: China excels at scale. Since the early 2000s, the world has benefited from China's ability to become the global manufacturing floor. Now, they're applying that same intensity to AI. If the 20th century was defined by battles over oil and industry, the 21st will be defined by competition over compute power, algorithms, and data. AI isn't just a commercial race—it's a geopolitical one
• DeepSeek showed us that China’s strengths extend well beyond manufacturing, into AI, with a relentless focus on cost versus performance. This kind of pressure will only push American solutions to improve. It's a fitting reminder that, like it or not, we’re still very much competing on a global stage
• Just as physical goods rely on complex global supply chains, so does AI—only this time the raw materials are chips, compute, and data. Any disruption in that chain has massive downstream effects on innovation and security. Taiwan’s fabs, China's rare earth minerals, American cloud infrastructure—AI's future rests on a fragile, deeply interdependent foundation. Perhaps the irony is that the global order is fracturing, but the AI race is the thread pulling it tighter together