‘Regions’ is, I think, the key word here. I don’t think the epidemic signals the end of globalization. I do think it signals an adjustment in certain situations. https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1249971520283303936

Let’s take masks as an example. It is painfully obvious that the UK and the EU states could not make and did not have access to the huge numbers required.

Does that mean that all of a sudden every state is going to seek to become self sufficient in masks. I suspect not. Think of the incremental cost, redundancy etc.

I certainly think we’ll see the growth of enormous emergency stockpiles on a country by country basis. I just don’t think we’ll see this replicated from a domestic manufacturing perspective.

I do think there will be some new domestic manufacturing capacity. For example, country x might stipulate that 25% of its purchase of masks should come from a domestic supplier.

The question then is what do we mean by ‘domestic’? This returns us to the regions point at the beginning. For the EU, domestic should mean based in the EU (much more efficient than country by country).

But then where does that leave post Brexit Britain. On the current trajectory, it implies that in order to be even moderately self sufficient the UK will need to build its own pandemic contingency manufacturing base.

Needless to say this will be highly inefficient and costly. The notional point of Brexit was to make it easier to trade globally. But if we are transitioning to a world where self sufficiency is much more important, the EU looks very attractive as a regional partner. /ends