Mozambique should also be aware — or does globalization make no sense?

Afonso Almeida Brandão"

The last two years (without anything predicting it) have seen a concrete setback in a phenomenon that had been increasing consistently until then and which was consensually accepted as an absolute truth: Globalization, that is, the free movement of people, goods and services and the expansion of international trade.

What was unthinkable for us a few years ago now appears to be very likely and no longer just a mere hypothesis: the decline of the concept of Globalization, or its conversion into something more adapted, being a synthesis of the present moment with the thesis and antithesis personified by a rural and cosmopolitan world, respectively, which I will call here, for lack of a better term, “continentalization”.

“Continentalization”, as I define it here, is characterized above all by a prominence and prevalence of commercial exchanges, privileging land transport between the various countries/regions existing on the different Continents and solid inter-regional political and economic cooperation, but also a greater strengthening of countries close to each other, with a focus on self-sufficiency of which the EU is at an advanced and even privileged stage compared to other geographies that will be forced to acquire similar positions and follow this path, given that the post-pandemic world will be quite different from the one we left in 2019 and where the place where products and services were produced was not relevant.

Here is a summary of some trends that will contribute, in the medium and long term, and that will accelerate, to a greater or lesser degree, this result and to which we should be attentive, of which Mozambique is no exception.

1— The political commitment and the more or less consensual and assumed promise of reindustrialization of the business fabric of Europe and the USA and the reduction of the outsourcing of products and services from countries such as China and other source markets, with cheap labor.

2— The tension between the more or less friendly relations between the US and Russia, which has revived the memories of those who lived with the constant threat of a nuclear bomb “hanging over their heads” during the Cold War, and, no less important, the still-present tension of the trade war between China and the US in the Trump era, which has pitted suppliers and customers against each other.

3— The heightened suspicion of other peoples, especially due to the issue of refugees, which naturally poses major obstacles to healthy international cooperation.

4— “The race” for new emerging technologies, disruptive of the third digital platform by governments, such as Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, which accentuate their differences and place them in a climate of fierce competition that shapes the already complex network and the existing international chessboard, of which the aforementioned troubled diplomacy that we are witnessing between the different blocs is just a symptom.

5— The notion of sustainability and nature preservation, which are today watchwords from a structural and continuous perspective over time, which will contribute (at least until there are alternative energy sources) to reducing the massification of aviation, given that this discourse is irreconcilable with the moment of resource extraction existing immediately before the pandemic and the sustainability agenda.

6— Covid 19 and all the constraints that this virus has created on mobility and the economic development of countries, but, even more pernicious, the awareness that people have acquired that its brutal effects were only possible because the world is in an advanced phase of Globalization and, if this were not the case, the spread of this virus would be more easily contained.

7— The war in Ukraine, which has already contributed to putting on hold geostrategic projects, such as the “Belt and Road”, driven and promoted by China, thus forcing the reconfiguration of strategies by world powers and rethinking the way in which most countries and cultures

are related to each other, whether at a level of commerce or at a level of symbolic and cultural exchanges, and inaugurating a new distrust, as well as highlighting and emphasizing asymmetries.

8— And, last but not least, and in a comical and even anecdotal way (if its consequences were not tragic, in the short to medium term), the grounding of the cargo ship Evergreen in a commercial port par excellence, the Suez Canal, which put pressure on distribution chains worldwide, as Readers will certainly remember.

All these phenomena mentioned are precipitating, but also a harbinger of, the outcome that is underway — and that sooner or later, the countries that make up the PALOPs — may also be dragged along and the likely consequences of this may come to be felt, a fact that we cannot ignore. It would therefore be good if governments did not fail to be vigilant.

In this brief contextualization, it is clear that the Continents must be self-sufficient among themselves due to all these constraints, not needing to trade so far apart, but rather expanding their Internal Market, no longer understood as countries but rather as regions, and observing within their border areas which areas are best prepared and have the best resources for certain activities, in a paradigm shift in the management of territories translated by a greater awareness of our connection as a species to the surrounding environment and, therefore, to a respect for nature, but also and more specifically, to a more autonomous and above all sovereign way of managing resources, without compromising the quality of life of all those who depend on them. And Mozambique and the other countries that make up the CPLP as a whole cannot (and should not) remain “asleep” to this Reality so as not to be surprised tomorrow with “the disastrous consequences”...

The impossibility of Mobility and, above all, the ideologies that have been witnessed over these 36 months and the difficulties that have arisen during this time with arguments worthy of “Hollywood” have precipitated decisions, which would have taken decades, in mere weeks' interval and, above all, clearly point to all of this being what will mark, I am sure, the theory and practice of Economic Diplomacy and International Trade in the coming years (with the Government of Mozambique included).

Some of these countries are already assuming and clearly designing themselves, although their lines are still diffuse and difficult to interpret for many, especially those excessively rooted in an Ancient World and which had other premises in their conception and worldview, not recognizing that this no longer exists, as is the case (unfortunately) with our country, Mozambique.

Let us therefore be very attentive and begin to act accordingly, so that tomorrow, which is already today, does not arrive and catch us off guard and ill-prepared for the change that will sooner or later come and shatter our comfortable and sometimes arrogant way of conceiving and seeing the world. May Daniel Chapo and his “machine guns” not be distracted...

2025/12/3