In 2002, Noam Chomsky wrote the following:
The term "globalization" has been appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of international solidarity—that is, globalization in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power systems. From the Wikipedia essay on anti-globalization.)
Well, it does help to define your terms in your own way before arguing for or against something. The list of groups defined as anti-globalization ranges from the ant-war activists to Christian rightists to nationalists to MAGA etc., etc.
One thing is sure: globalization is already here and is integrated into everything we buy and say and do. Like everything else it comes with benefits and downsides and unintended, or at least unforeseen consequences.
Trump's ill-planned war on Iran has shown us the power of physical choke-points. Some 80% of the world's trade travels by sea, and as we have now become too aware, the world's water-based choke-points, e.g., Hormuz, Malacca, Panama Canal, Bosporus, Bab El-Mandeb, Suez Canal, Gibraltar, if controlled by one country, in spite of UN strictures, have the potential to massively affect economic trade and to completely disrupt local economies and alter international power structures. We can only hope that other nations who control straits and choke-points will not manipulate them in the same way to gain economic and political power and will not start stockpiling drones. Ukraine in the past year has shown how to completely control large stretches of land using drones. Works for straits, too. [1]
But globalization has also had the unintended consequence of providing the United States with a financial choke-point as powerful as that of the Strait of Hormuz.
Historically, the world’s dominance and maritime trade has depended on physical “choke-points” such as canals and straits. “But hyper-globalization has given rise to a new, abstract form of economic warfare revolving around the digital circuitry of finance, as Edward Fishman details in his book Chokepoints. (I prefer to spell it with the hyphen.) Armed with the unique strength of the US dollar and American financial institutions, Washington began to exercise “weaponized interdependence” through asset freezes, embargoes and secondary sanctions to keep opponents out of global trade. What began as scattered efforts to change the behavior of rogue states evolved into an aggressive industrial policy to preserve America’s declining competitive advantage against a rapidly industrializing China. Trump, in the MoU, has essentially eliminated all the finance restrictions that had been placed on Iran by Obama. I would argue that Trump's tariffs are intended to be a choke-point, but have not worked the way he intended. [2]
At first, officials in Washington were excited about the plan. They saw economic warfare as a way to play geopolitics without killing anyone. But in the end, it failed. Instead, one-sided bans and export controls, like those put in place against Huawei or Russia, have had terrible effects on people's lives and torn alliances apart. America's traditional Western friends are becoming more and more against its economic demands, which make them give up things they want in exchange for money. They see these demands as favors without benefits. At the same time, Fishman says, the strict use of "long-arm jurisdiction" has given competitors like China the slogans of free trade, which goes against the liberal capitalist ideals the US says it supports.
Wars and words. In the world we live in now, economic weapons are the middle ground. They are ways to put pressure on people that are stronger than talking things out but safer than going to war. The strength of the US dollar and control over the supply lines for semiconductors are tools used for this kind of statecraft. It's like going to another country without a ticket if you can't get to the dollar. A U-turn is needed for almost all cross-border transactions that go through the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS) or Fedwire's wire transfer system. Because of a problem with the technology, transfers at a correspondent account in New York need to be put on hold for a short time. This makes it illegal for the US Treasury Department to do business with other countries' money. This book was obviously written before the Iran War (published early 2025) and one of problems with his analysis is that the Iranians were requiring that "toll payments" were required to be paid in cryptocurrency or the Chinese Yuan. Until now oil has always been priced in Petrodollars, i.e. U.S. currency. Were a different currency to become the standard, the repercussions could be severe for the value of the dollar.
When it comes to technological choke-points, the Foreign Direct Product Rule mostly uses the same reasoning. These rules let the US control the sale of any item made anywhere in the world that uses US-made software or intellectual property. This tool proved to be very useful when it was used to hit Huawei and take away important high-end chips. In the real world, this move made a lot of difference. The UK lost £2 billion and three years trying to set up 5G, and partners in other countries had to cut the company off of their networks. These steps are made even stronger with secondary sanctions that take advantage of the fact that private financial companies are very risk-averse. "Banks tend to follow the rules more closely than the law requires because of the enormous fines or losing access to the New York correspondent banking system," he stated. These technological tools have been used by different presidential administrations to reach different world goals.
The way economic fighting was done was changed for the first time by Trump. It wasn't broad pressure from many countries; instead, it was aimed at very narrow, one-way goals. In order to get people to do what they want, non-state and individual players were emphasized as the main tools. Traditional alliance cooperation was often skipped in favor of quick tactical wins. This was a real shift in how American power worked. Instead of just changing how other governments behaved, economic weapons were changed into tools for industrial strategy to protect a losing competitive edge.
Along with going after companies, Trump has also gone after people. For example, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested for breaking sanctions, and judges at the International Criminal Court have been targeted one time. To make sure that sanctions were being followed, the government also tried to bring criminal charges against top Turkish bankers. With these steps, economic statecraft was used to force people to do things and keep businesses safe from competition. This wasn't unfair to one side like the international sanctions that were put on Russia in response to 2014 or the unified pressure that was put on Iran during the nuclear talks. But because these tools are used so often and by so many people, they have created structural risks that close the gap between short-term gains and long-term disconnects.
We need to stop treating sanctions differently for each situation if the US wants to keep its military strength in the future. Instead, it should follow a strict set of rules when applying sanctions. Someone once said that sanctions are like medicines for politics. They need to be carefully picked out and used the right way. They lose their power over time as you use them more, and resistance builds up. For the US's economic national security tools to keep working well, they need to be made more professional. They shouldn't try to catch up; instead, they should take the initiative and plan ahead, thinking about both the short-term effects and the long-term security of the structure.
Because these economic weapons have been used too much, they are less efficient and the United States is even more alone. The enemies we are focusing on have seen where America is weak and how quickly policy can change. They have used this information to get richer. China, Russia, and Iran have changed to fit the new system by setting up their own payment processors, storing gold, and using alternative networks like cryptocurrencies and transshipment hubs. By depending too much on digital financial tools and ignoring the way the world is shaped, the US has made both friends and enemies look for better options, which has reduced its impact on the world economy.
[1] Horowitz, Michael C. How Ukraine's Drone Innovation Reversed Russia's Momentum. June 12, 2026. https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-ukraines-drone-innovation-reversed-russias-momentum
[2] https://www.bipc.com/u.s.-sanctions-on-iran-settlement-negotiations-and-status
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