A container vessel departs from the Qingdao Port, east China's Shandong province. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

The major issues that policymakers are facing the world over – from security to inclusiveness to climate change – transcend nation states. Therefore, solutions cannot be found unilaterally, in isolation of the actions of others.

Solving today’s challenges actually requires more global openness, integration and cooperation, not less – which in turn depends on reforming the international trade and economic system. Instead of fragmentation, with all the costs and dangers this would entail, the goal should be re-globalization.

Re-globalization, in contrast, describes an approach that extends trade integration to more people, more economies and more issues. It is an approach that places international cooperation at its centre and recognizes that global problems require global solutions.

However, re-globalization is not simply more globalization. Rather, it calls for a reform of the multilateral trading system to ensure that the principles of secure, inclusive and sustainable trade are respected.

Re-globalization encompasses the reduction of trade barriers for those that have remained at the margins of the trading system, from least-developed economies to workers in the industrial heartlands of advanced economies.

Thereby, re-globalization advances resilience through diversification, inclusiveness through development, and sustainability through knowledge diffusion. This includes strengthening cooperation and coherence with other multilateral fora and across issues. And through all these advances, re-globalization unlocks trade’s potential to drive solutions to key challenges of today.

— WTO, World Trade Report 2023: Re-globalization for a secure, inclusive and sustainable future, 12-09-2023