Globalization Is Back (Sort Of): DHL’s Data, Forced-Labor Tariffs and Rabobank’s Michael Every

Globalization is apparently back, according to DHL, a company with absolutely no stake in the matter. Its latest globalization tracker has globalization at a record high in 2025 and goods trade growing in the first half of 2026 at its fastest pace in 15 years (Covid rebound aside). Meanwhile, US-China trade is down to 1.6% of world goods trade, from a peak of 3.5% a decade ago. Trade isn’t disappearing, it’s rerouting. In episode 94, Robert Skidmore and I look at what that means, then sit down with Michael Every, Global Strategist at Rabobank, to ask what happens when tariffs, sanctions, chip bans and subsidies stop being separate policies and start being one toolkit he calls economic statecraft.

That fits uncomfortably well with Michael’s argument. The WTO-era system, he says, only works if everyone is on the same geopolitical page, and that page is gone. What replaces it is a world where governments need an answer to a deceptively simple question - what is GDP for? - and where China’s neo-mercantilist model leaves everyone else choosing whether to integrate with it or against it. Elsewhere in the episode: how forced-labor tariffs are speeding up a global supply-chain crackdown, and why America’s job machine looks better in the headline numbers than in workers’ lives.

What Went Wrong This Month

• Globalization is (apparently) back. DHL’s globalization tracker has globalization at a record in 2025, goods trade in the first half of 2026 growing at its fastest pace in 15 years (Covid rebound aside), and forecasts upgraded for 2026-29. Yet only 1.6% of world goods trade was between the US and China in January-May 2026, down from 3.5% at the peak. Our read: it’s the same trade with a new name, and a lot like the “N minus one” world Richard Baldwin has been describing.
• Trump, accidental forced-labor crusader. The Wall Street Journal argues that using forced labor as a justification for tariffs is accelerating a global crackdown on forced labor in supply chains, even if the tariffs themselves get overturned. After the Supreme Court struck down the global tariffs in February, Washington turned to Section 301 against 60 economies, and partners including Canada, India, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina are tightening their own rules to take the excuse away. The US is well ahead on enforcement (20,000 shipments denied entry under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act as of August 2026, versus two blocked by Canada so far, and an EU ban that doesn’t bite until December 2027). The business takeaway: forced-labor compliance is becoming a market-access requirement, not a CSR line item, and customs officers are about to be asked to work out whether a shirt was made with forced labor, which, as they’d like us to know, is not their job.
• America’s job machine is underwhelming. Bloomberg’s Jonathan Levin (October 5) argues the US labor market is weaker than the headline numbers suggest: job growth is concentrated in lower-paying occupations, hiring is sluggish even though layoffs remain at historic lows, and it’s harder for workers to move into better-paid roles. That helps explain why consumers feel gloomy despite low unemployment. We wonder where the good jobs are going - AI, offshoring, or both.

Our guest: Michael Every

Michael Every is Global Strategist at Rabobank, where he looks across assets, disciplines and geographies for the bank’s economics and markets division in Singapore. He has more than two decades of experience as an economist and strategist. Before Rabobank, he was director at Silk Roads Associates in Bangkok, senior economist and fixed income strategist at the Royal Bank of Canada in London and Sydney, and an economist at Dun & Bradstreet in London. He holds a master’s degree in economics with distinction from University College London and speaks a smattering of languages, including Thai.

In our conversation, we cover:

• How someone who came to economics from politics and history ended up as a global strategist, plus his “pretty flawless track record” of moving to a country just before a crisis, starting with Southeast Asia in 1997.
• Economic statecraft: why tariffs, sanctions and chip bans should be read as one toolkit, how we went from an era that could “pretend that history had ended” and run on boring technocratic policy to “the 19th century, but with mobile phones,” and the question he thinks every government should answer: what is GDP for?
• Is the WTO still relevant? (Rob insisted. The cafeteria, at least, will live on.)
• Why a WTO-style system only works when everyone is on the same geopolitical page, and why that means more cooperation and less of it at the same time.
• Neo-mercantilism: why he says China is deindustrializing almost everyone, not just the West, why everyone else has to integrate with it or against it, and why he doesn’t think the model is sustainable in the long run. (Rob also shreds his master’s degree.)
• The Rabobank view of food and agriculture: a deeply integrated food system that is now under question, with China openly trying to minimize food imports.
• Expat corner: what living abroad taught him about the UK (no Marmite, we checked).
• Which is the bigger bubble, Dutch tulips or data centers? (You can’t eat tulips.) And, because this is Geneva, should we buy the dip on kebab meat?

Rabobank clients can find Michael’s research on Rabobank Knowledge. Everyone else can find him on LinkedIn and on X at @themichaelevery.

Plus: why 94 is a surprisingly good number for a trade podcast (plutonium, Chapter 94 of the Harmonized System covering furniture and prefabricated buildings, the Section 232 furniture tariffs turning one, and 1994’s trade milestones: NAFTA, the Marrakesh Agreement and the Channel Tunnel), Rob’s grievances about blocked airplane toilets and the difference between Mayday and Pan-Pan, a “Get Off My Lawn” segment on Gen Z, GameStop and millennials, bedbugs grounding a plane in Rome, and Skyguide’s job cuts.

This episode is brought to you by Active Languages, a Geneva-based language training company that has been helping professionals, expats and international families succeed in Switzerland for nearly 30 years. Trade Splaining listeners get a complimentary language level assessment and initial consultation: email [confirm address with Active Languages] and mention Trade Splaining, or learn more at activelanguages.com.

🎧 Listen to episode 94 on your favorite podcast app or find us at www.tradesplaining.com.

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