Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Reconfiguring trade
Global Trade | Globalization
May 9, 2024 – A reconfiguration of global trade is under way. McKinsey Global Institute director and senior partner Olivia White and coauthors find that this process could take one of two forms. Under the first scenario, heightened trade frictions between geopolitically distant economies would lead to an increasingly fragmented “deglobalized” world, in which trade reorients toward flowing between geopolitically aligned economies. Under the second scenario, trade diversification—or reducing import concentration—could involve trade relationships in which no economy is overly dependent on any other for its imports. Click through the interactive to see more.
To read the report, see “Geopolitics and the geometry of global trade,” January 17, 2024.
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Visual form
Sequence.
Layout / body structure
The page uses a three-panel world-map-style that the reader moves through with panel controls. The reading order is panel by panel: actual 2022 trade relationships first, then the 2035 fragmentation simulation, and then the 2035 diversification simulation.
What is being compared
It compares global trade connections for critical goods and services across major economies and shows how those links change under two alternative future scenarios.
Measurement system
The measures are trade flows in billions of dollars. Circle size represents export totals, line thickness represents trade volume along each corridor, and the economies are grouped into Western, mid-aligned, and Eastern blocs inside the visual.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each panel positions circles like a world map and connects them with thick or thin trade lines. The same economies reappear across panels so the viewer can see whether trade corridors remain global, shift inward toward aligned blocs, or stay closer to the 2022 pattern.
Main takeaway from the visual
The shows that fragmentation would reroute trade more sharply toward geopolitically aligned blocs, while diversification preserves much more of the current map and does not dramatically hand export share to the mid-aligned economies.
Key standout values or extremes
The chart focuses on the top 20 trade corridors in critical goods and services. The largest corridors between China and Western economies remain visible in the diversification view, while the fragmentation view shifts much more of the visible trade structure inward toward bloc-based ties.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
The reader steps through the three scenarios with the controls and watches the same set of economy circles and corridor lines reorganize from one panel to the next.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart is the full visual on this page.