Africa: global capitalism is hoisted by its own supply chains

Born in Cape Town, Natale Labia lives in Milan, Italy, and writes on economics and finance. Partner of the private equity firm Lionhead Capital Partners. MBA from Bocconi University. Supports Juventus.

In today’s globalized economy, the key is how capital is managed, not the approach to trade

Who is at least supposed to benefit from economic and trade policy? Much has been written about the extraordinary speech delivered earlier this month by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on resetting China-U.S. Trade relations.

What may have been missing, however, is how fundamental this is to the emergence of a new narrative about what trade and economic policy is actually supposed to do.

For the past four decades, until the election of Donald Trump, U.S. trade and economic policy had one goal in mind. It was the era of the Washington Consensus, the neoliberal agenda. Neoliberalism, as Philip Roth said, simply meant socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. The primary objective was to please one person: the great American consumer.

When Francis Fukuyama wrote the essay The End of the Story and the Last Man, he was only stating what was widely accepted for …