{"id":463054,"date":"2026-05-12T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/llyc.global\/?p=463054"},"modified":"2026-05-12T11:45:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:45:52","slug":"the-new-global-dis-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/llyc.global\/en\/ideas\/uno\/the-new-global-dis-order\/","title":{"rendered":"The new global (Dis) order"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rules that have governed the world for the past seventy years are in decline. The global order based on multilateralism and, since the fall of the Wall, on the predominance of the United States, is fading away. Rivalries are greater, China is fighting for hegemony, and unilateralism prevails. Almost no scenario is now off the table.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This change is momentous for the companies that are part of the LLYC community. The United States, Europe, and Latin America \u2014 the regions where our company operates \u2014 are adopting new roles and new relationships, generating strong trade tensions. But there are still broad spaces for cooperation, synergy, and democratic values. In this dialogue, which took place before the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the war in Iran but reflects all the conditions that led to them, Luisa Garc\u00eda and Pol Morillas address the geopolitical side of the many challenges ahead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luisa Garc\u00eda (LG)<\/strong>: When we began thinking about how we wanted to celebrate LLYC\u2019s 30th anniversary, we were clear that although we are very proud of what we have achieved over these years, we wanted to look to the future. That\u2019s why we launched the Partners for What\u2019s Next program, with the idea of staying close to clients and collaborators to understand the challenges ahead and be able to support them when facing those challenges. In that context, it was important to have a conversation about the new global order, or disorder. And with no one better than Pol Morillas, author of the book The Big Players\u2019 Playground. Europe in a Hostile World, and director of CIDOB in Barcelona, one of Europe\u2019s most important international studies think tanks.<\/p>\n

Pol Morillas (PM)<\/strong>: Thank you very much for sharing this time with me and inviting me to join your conversations.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: Pol, we come from a world marked by multilateralism, where institutions like the IMF, the UN, or the World Bank promoted globalization, trade, and cooperation. But we already know that in the future, the world will probably no longer be governed by that order.<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: Indeed, I believe that at this moment we are seeing a trend toward a multipolar world where not just one country, the United States, but two countries, China and the United States, dominate. And where middle powers also want to participate in dividing the international power pie. It is more multipolar but, at the same time, increasingly less multilateral.<\/p>\n

The institutions you mentioned are losing relevance in structuring relationships. And that multipolarity without multilateralism is what gives us a feeling of helplessness. The role of states, especially great powers, can be strengthened so that these two instances govern the structuring of international relations. But the crises we will face \u2014 climate-related, those linked to technological regulations, the COVID-19 pandemic at the time, or another similar one in the future \u2014 will continue to be transnational crises. That is the great paradox we face right now.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: LLYC was born in Spain and began its international expansion twenty-eight years ago in Latin America. I wanted to ask you about the role of those two regions, Europe and Latin America. Are they just spectators, just bargaining chips in the new power struggle?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: I believe that in this new international order, Europe and Latin America share a similar position. Europe has always depended on the United States for its security. The transatlantic relationship is fundamental, also as a hub of international trade and the center of the world economy in the Atlantic. And now Europe is considering whether, in light of the crisis in transatlantic relations with Trump, which is also due to the rise of new powers, it should diversify its alliances. And Latin America is somewhat in the same position. It cannot depend solely on growing Chinese investments. It must maintain a good relationship with the European Union \u2014 as we have seen in the discussions about the EU-Mercosur Agreement \u2014 but without losing sight of the United States, with which it has always maintained a very close relationship. Latin America and Europe share the feeling of having to pivot among many actors simultaneously because their context, this more multipolar world, has also changed.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: Yes, Europe and Latin America must learn to be more polyamorous. But in that shared polyamory, do you think there is space to strengthen the relationship between the two? You mentioned the Mercosur-EU agreement. Is the opportunity and movement to reinforce Latin America and the European Union real, or is it still a chimera?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: The relationship between Latin America and Europe is very unequal. It is marked by distrust, sometimes due to the legacy of colonialism. And that affects the bilateral relationship. But if we broaden the picture and see where the other international powers are located, and look to the future, to where these two continents are headed, they surely share much more than what separates them.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: Of course, overcoming the past and looking to the future is fundamental. Also, just as with the enlargement of the European Union we realized how diverse Europe is, one cannot think of Latin America as a single unit. Europe\u2019s relationship with Mexico is nothing like its relationship with Brazil, nor is the relationship between Mexico and Brazil the same.<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: That leads us to another important issue: the fragmentation of political systems in many regions of the world. In Europe\u2019s case, what hurts it most when relating to other countries, especially the United States, is its internal fragmentation. We saw this, for example, in the trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. It showed a Europe willing to yield to U.S. demands, which did not want to play its most valuable card: a common trade policy, the ability to act economically and commercially with one voice \u2014 something it does not have in defense or technology. Europe was very afraid of internal fragmentation, the impact that a negotiation contrary to U.S. interests could generate within the European Union. Often, it is not so much that the European Union lacks tools to act or power \u2014 it has power \u2014 but that this power is excessively fragmented.<\/p>\n

“We live in a world in which the national interests of the great powers, defended to the extreme, and the interdependencies that pass through the funnel of instrumentalization, come together.”<\/strong>
\nPol Morillas<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

LG<\/strong>: Looking again at the axes, you have spoken about trade and security policy between the United States and the European Union. What other U.S. foreign policy issues do you think will shape the agenda leading up to the midterms [besides the intervention in Venezuela and Ir\u00e1n]?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: I believe that within the Republican administration and the MAGA movement itself, there is a big debate about the country\u2019s foreign policy and two fundamental precepts of it. On one side are those who say the focus should be on the United States\u2019 own interests, even within its closest area of influence. In that sense, we saw Trump\u2019s statements regarding Canada, Greenland, or Panama, as if those countries were his backyard where the U.S. can do anything. That side prioritizes the conception of security. This view includes the unpunished attacks on boats in the Caribbean, under the pretext that they are drug-running boats and a problem for American security [and that preceded the kidnapping of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro].<\/p>\n

And another side says no, that the United States has a fundamental rival beyond its Western Hemisphere and immediate surroundings, which is China. And what must be done is to equip all American foreign policy for confrontation or competition with China. These two foreign policy views coexist with others that say that to prioritize China, the U.S. must stop focusing on scenarios that do not interest it, where it does not want to project its foreign policy, whether that is the Middle East, [although the attack on Iran disproves this version] Europe, or Ukraine.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: So, it\u2019s about prioritizing.<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: It is difficult for us to decipher what Trump\u2019s foreign policy objectives are because he constantly makes us doubt, changes his mind, and has variable positions on different issues, particularly on China.<\/p>\n

LG:<\/strong> The relationship between the United States and China is heavily marked by the impact technology has on the geopolitical agenda, from rare earth elements to artificial intelligence legislation. And throughout the chain, we see a clear impact on the commercial front. Besides that, we have also identified climate change or migration. What topics will you be focusing on at CIDOB in the coming months or years?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: I think that in many of these areas you mention, what prevails is the logic with which we started the conversation: the interdependencies that still exist, that transnationality of phenomena that affects trade, climate change, migration, or technology. All these issues are necessarily transnational. But what governs relations is the instrumentalization of these issues according to the interests of nations. In the case of trade, we see this clearly. The United States and China have not stopped trading; on the contrary, they remain subject to great commercial interdependencies. What happens? Those interdependencies are instrumentalized and used as geopolitical pressure weapons against each other. This is obvious in the case of rare earths, with the limitation of the export of semiconductors, chips, and advanced technology from the United States to China, especially those of potential dual use, that is, civilian and military.<\/p>\n

Regarding migration, what we often see is that many countries are also instrumentalizing migration as a weapon of destabilization against third countries. This happened, for example, when Russia allowed refugees from various countries like Afghanistan to freely cross into Finland and other neighboring countries as a mechanism of pressure or destabilization. Fundamentally, migrations are also interdependencies or transnational phenomena that states instrumentalize. And regarding technology, we have already talked about basic elements like chips, semiconductors, or rare earths, components necessary for advanced technologies that are also instrumentalized. We live in a world where the national interests of great powers are defended to the utmost and increasingly without scruples, alongside interdependencies that pass through that funnel of instrumentalization.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: And what can companies do to understand, anticipate, and operate better in that world? Because sometimes the timeframes are very short. For example, agility in adapting supply chains in response to a tariff change is an obvious example. What best practices could develop those skills that sometimes are less advanced within companies?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: First of all, the market-geopolitics binomial must be reversed. What we are seeing now is that very often geopolitics conditions commercial relations and the main partners with whom companies want to maintain fluid and intense commercial relationships. If before it was believed that geopolitics would gradually reduce its impact thanks to market forces, now what we see is quite the opposite. Geopolitics intensifies market relations, and therefore companies must incorporate this factor, which was previously considered a non-market or secondary aspect, into their profit and loss account. Now it has a primary impact and must be at the center of the analysis of market elements. This is the great paradigm shift: we come from a globalized world without barriers and with global value chains without restrictions, but increasingly we see that this is giving way to the preeminence of state power in geopolitical relations and even intervention in critical industries and companies.<\/p>\n

LG<\/strong>: I think we have made a good journey because we first talked about the new multipolar scenario, the blocs, and how they adapt to the new situation, combining domestic and foreign policy in an indivisible way. You also told us how some major issues are instrumentalized in politics between countries or blocs. And we ended with this proposal to change our business perspective because in this new context geopolitics will have a much more direct impact than before, and probably much faster, and we must anticipate it and have the knowledge inside the house that allows us, at the very least, to design some scenario. We have talked about Europe, China, Latin America, the United States, and mentioned migration and technology. Is there anything at CIDOB that you think is not receiving enough attention?<\/p>\n

PM<\/strong>: There are two issues. The first, which directly impacts the mechanisms of political and social relations in our societies, is the future of democracy. That is, to what extent, particularly in Europe, those values that have been unquestionable are and continue to be the desired governance mechanism. Today, more than ever, it must be demonstrated that those ideas remain valid because there are others that move in a different direction and question them. And in another area, there is an element we have not mentioned that is fundamental for Europe and Spain in particular: Africa. Europe has not only lacked strategic vision when defining the relationship it wants to maintain with its southern neighbors in the European Union but also on many security issues, climate crises, migrations, refugees, illicit trafficking. Many of these issues originate in sub-Saharan Africa, or the Sahel in particular. Europe must stop turning its back on the African continent because we should understand the Mediterranean Sea more as a lake than as a sea<\/p>\n

“We must flip the market-geopolitics binomial. Geopolitics intensifies market relations and, therefore, companies must incorporate this factor into their bottom line.”<\/strong>
\nPol Morillas<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The rules that have governed the world for the past seventy years are in decline. The global order based on multilateralism and, since the fall of the Wall, on the predominance of the United States, is fading away. Rivalries are greater, China is fighting for hegemony, and unilateralism prevails. 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