I'm talking to Evan Smith, who started Altana in 2019 because he predicted the first wave of globalized manufacturing and trade would end, and that companies would want new powerful tools to adapt their supply chains as the world grew more complex. Here in 2025, that looks like a pretty good bet — even if the way it's playing out is more stressful and chaotic than anyone really wants it to be.

There are some big, unsettling ideas here, but talking about them directly and with clarity at least made me feel like I had a framework to understand the endless on-again, off-again news cycle on tariffs and trade.

Links: 

• Globalization 2.0 Manifesto | Altana
• The ‘giant sucking sound’ of NAFTA | The Conversation
• ‘Offensive Realism’: The never-ending struggle for power | American Diplomacy (2002)
• Foreign Affairs Big Mac I | NYT (1996)
• The end of the Golden Arches Doctrine | Financial Times
• Trump could scale back tariffs, Lutnick says | CNBC
• China joined rule-based trading system — then broke the rules | Politico
• Open Source and China: Inverting Copyright? | Wisconsin International Law Journal
• How the US lost out on iPhone work | NYT

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright. 

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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