The Global Risks Report 2025: A World of Growing Divisions

Supercharged Economic Tensions (Part 2)

Escalation beyond tariffs 
Research published in November 2024 assessed the vulnerability of 173 countries to restrictive US trade measures. The research considers key concerns of US policy-makers, including those countries’ bilateral trade surpluses with the United States, restrictions on market access for US exports, and existing tariffs, among other criteria. Weighing the countries according to these criteria, South Korea is found to be the most at risk for being targeted with restrictive US trade measures, followed by China, Japan, Canada and India, at the next level of risk. However, other countries and blocs are found to be at risk, too: Brazil, the EU, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico and Thailand are the next group of economies.

This assessment chimes with the results of the EOS, which show that geoeconomic confrontation (sanctions, tariffs, investment screening, etc.) is a prominent concern in Eastern Asia, in particular. In Taiwan, China and Hong Kong SAR, China, this risk is the third - most significant concern in their two-year outlooks. Moreover, 12 other economies, including Japan and South Korea, rank geoeconomic confrontation among their top 10 risks. While Eastern Asia may be one region most immediately impacted by new trade restrictions, broadening global geoeconomic fragmentation would affect all economies, with those likely to suffer the most ultimately being emerging markets and low-income countries.

Beyond tariffs, industrial policy is at the core of other trade-related protectionist measures. The world is already in an era of industrial policy, with a high number of non-tariff barriers impacting trade relations. Two-thirds of all harmful trade restriction measures implemented in the last five years have been subsidies,excluding export subsidies. Legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act or initiatives such as Make in India are a rising characteristic of countries’ inward focus and this trend could accelerate in a fragmenting trade environment. Although industrial policy can have benefits, for example addressing market failures, its risks include corruption and misallocation of resources. A related area likely to see escalation is more blocking of trade and investment on national security grounds, with the number of sectors classified by governments as “strategically sensitive” expanding. 

As the space for a multilateral, rules-based and open global trade environment diminishes, government interventions in the private sector could be used more frequently as a form of retaliation against companies’ home governments. Employees of foreign companies could increasingly be prosecuted or have more restrictions placed on their in-country stays, and the number and size of fines imposed on companies for alleged regulatory non-compliance could be ratcheted up. Governments may make more use of sanctions targeting individuals, financial transactions and companies. 

Some governments may foment more aggressive misinformation and disinformation campaigns about goods and services from targeted countries. Results from the EOS indicate widespread concerns about the Misinformation and disinformation risk in a diverse set of countries, including India (#2), Germany (#4), Brazil (#6), and the United States (#6). Hardening public perceptions could lead to more frequent consumer boycotts of products. 

Costs for companies doing business internationally will rise in this scenario. Global firms will need to navigate divergent sets of regulations in different, fragmenting parts of the world. Regulatory technology (RegTech) will be used more by governments to survey foreign companies and ensure compliance, reducing the time between new regulations being imposed and the need for companies to become fully compliant. IT infrastructure as well as data security and storage protocols will continue to be adapted to national security interests at the expense of cross-border commercial considerations. Finally, international data flows and financial transactions will become more cumbersome and costly, setting back some of the rapid progress made in recent years through the implementation of new technologies. 

Government-led efforts at commercial cyber espionage could become more frequent as part of efforts to tilt the playing field towards their national champions. The EOS reveals that respondents in high- income countries tend to highlight cybersecurity risk. In some of these – for example Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – Cyber insecurity is one of the top three risks. Governments may also put pressure on domestically headquartered cloud services companies to restrict access in other countries. 

Such a global fragmentation scenario will weaken the kind of multilateral collaboration required in many fields. For example, coordinating regulatory efforts and mobilizing the vast financial resources needed for the green transition will become much more difficult. Technological innovations that might make a difference towards greening economies will face more impediments to being shared across borders and scaled globally. Other areas where deeper global collaboration is badly needed, such as global health, energy or infrastructure, will also be likely to see slowdowns or reversals in progress. This will leave the world less well prepared for the next global pandemic, for example, while urgent public health and broader humanitarian issues will slip even further down the global agenda. Contagion from trade disruptions could spill over into food insecurity, too. Some large cities in Sub- Saharan Africa that are reliant on global commodity markets for their food supply are particularly at risk. 

Reference: The Global Risks Report 2025 20th Edition. World Economic Forum.