Hinrich Foundation

The Hinrich Foundation is an independent Asia-based philanthropic organization focused on advancing sustainable global trade through research and education.

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Indo-Pacific governments increasingly view the US tariff campaign less as a conventional trade dispute and more as a long-term restructuring of the regional economic and strategic order. Even among countries frustrated by the tariffs, the dominant mindset is adaptation rather than resistance, Derek Grossman writes: https://t.co/DiuNMCFZ9N

#USTradePolicy #Tariffs #IndoPacific #Geopolitics #TradePolicy

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

The elimination of de minimis in the US has failed to keep Chinese competition out. "Temu and Shein have shifted to a more traditional model of distribution, where imported products are sent to and from warehouses in the US. Chinese logistics companies have now moved into the US market and are doing distribution right down to the last mile, often more cheaply than American competitors thanks to the use of independent drivers," writes Alan Beattie in the latest Trade Secrets newsletter.

"As the Hinrich Foundation’s Deborah Elms pointed out to me, “what was about helping domestic firms compete and responding to complaints of domestic retailers probably created even bigger competition”. Elms, who wrote about the impact on small businesses, says “the end of de minimis just accelerated dependence on platforms. When smaller firms could ship directly, particularly by post, they had fewer reasons to get on a platform. Now, it’s nearly impossible for small firms to service US customers on their own.”

#TradePolicy #SupplyChains #SmallBusiness #USTradePolicy #GlobalTrade

https://t.co/1Ukf3tqdz3

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

China’s latest crackdown on Chinese investors investing overseas via Hong Kong brokerages is part of a years-long campaign to ward off capital flight. The move coincides with the US Department of Defense reinstating Alibaba and Baidu on a list of companies accused of aiding China’s military. Both actions, Hinrich Foundation Senior Research Fellow Stewart Paterson warns, will likely make a casualty of the countries' broader interests: https://t.co/uX8NW2bio5

#China #CapitalMarkets #Geoeconomics #EconomicSecurity #GlobalTrade

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Southeast Asia's quest for energy security means that nuclear power plants will likely begin operations in the region within the next decade. The critical test for policymakers in ASEAN and the global nuclear industry is to put in place the effective negotiation and implementation of safety, security, and statecraft in a highly variegated region.

Alvin Chew, Senior Fellow at Singapore’s RSIS and former envoy to Vienna working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, charts the landscape and offers policy recommendations in this finale of our series on Asia’s nuclear energy future. Read the report here: https://t.co/guUt1f2agc

#NuclearEnergy #EnergySecurity #SoutheastAsia #Geopolitics #EnergyTransition

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

The Hinrich Foundation hosted a book talk in April with Marc Levinson, economist, historian, and author of The Box and Outside the Box, on the evolution of #globalization, geopolitics, and the shipping industry. Catch up on the full video recap and highlights here: https://t.co/hkwianEUX0

#BookTalk #EventRecap #SupplyChains #Shipping

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

As the Hormuz crisis revived global anxiety about maritime chokepoints, the Malacca Strait does not need to be closed to become unstable. All it takes to erode its viability is for its guarantee of free passage to be seen as less than neutral, a risk that Indonesia should take into account when it toyed with the idea of tolling the Strait, Rahma Arifa, Associate Director of the Helsinki Geoeconomics Society, writes: https://t.co/YGR1r0a4Fi

#MaritimeSecurity #MalaccaStrait #SupplyChains #Indonesia #EconomicSecurity

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

The US and China are competing to secure the edge in space-based infrastructure that already is starting to underpin the future of global trade. Launch sites are critical to space missions. Geographically large countries have the edge. The US dominates the space trade with 25 launch sites. But China is closing in with 17. Check out this second in a three-part visual essay co-developed by the Hinrich Foundation and Visual Capitalist: https://t.co/gzmBJ4JwB2

#SpaceEconomy #SpaceTechnology #Geopolitics #GlobalTrade #NationalSecurity #Innovation

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Of all the nuclear powers, Russia is furthest ahead in building a foothold in Southeast Asia for nuclear energy exports as the region searches for energy security. But China, too, has Southeast Asia in its sights to augment China's nuclear export portfolio.

Both Russia and China run state-owned nuclear exporters that offer financing packages and waste management solutions unmatched by the West. In choosing a partner, ASEAN governments must consider a complex array of factors, including geopolitics, technology transfer, and global non-proliferation and safety networks.

Read our paper, the second of a three-part series on Asia's nuclear energy future, by Ian Storey of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute: https://t.co/LlHddh3REm

#NuclearEnergy #EnergySecurity #SoutheastAsia #StrategicCompetition #EnergyTransition

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Trump’s tariff agenda is moving onto new legal ground as Washington rebuilds its tariff wall. North America’s unresolved trade pact, the EU-China trade imbalance, Indonesia's resource nationalism, and the weaponization of the critical minerals trade. Check out what we’ve been reading on these topics: https://t.co/rT4abxN12r

#TradePolicy #Geopolitics #CriticalMinerals #Tariffs #EconomicSecurity

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Intra-BRICS trade has surged since 2003, yet the bloc remains less integrated than its economic scale would suggest. The UN Trade and Development’s report, ‘Two Decades of Intra-BRICS Trade: Trends, Patterns and Policies’, examines why trade growth has outpaced policy coordination. It highlights uneven industrial development, institutional gaps, and the lack of a BRICS-wide trade agreement as key barriers to deeper South-South integration, and proposes a comprehensive “Trade+” strategy to support more sustainable growth. Explore the report’s other key insights here: https://t.co/PPTSRPKwpx

#BRICS #GlobalTrade #EconomicDevelopment #TradePolicy #EmergingMarkets

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Check out the infographic here: https://t.co/pQwe019C1L

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

China's surge in space launches about a decade ago marked the beginning of the Third Space Age. The rising contest with the US to dominate the space economy includes a race for critical metals and private venture capital key to defense and national security, as well as the global navigation satellite system powering a vast swathe of consumer apps.

In the first of a three-part series, @VisualCap, in collaboration with the Hinrich Foundation, illustrates how the space trade now joins AI and geoeconomics at the apex of a superpower competition to shape the future of global commerce and policy statecraft. Check out the infographic here:

#SpaceEconomy #Geoeconomics #NationalSecurity #CriticalMinerals #ArtificialIntelligence

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

In a webinar hosted by the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents-USA, Hinrich Foundation Head of Trade Policy Deborah Elms joined trade journalist Mara Lee to assess how Section 301 is shaping the next phase of US unilateral trade enforcement. Watch a recap of their discussion: https://t.co/ZaydJOyP3R

#Webinar #Recap #Section301 #USTradePolicy #Tariffs

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

On 27 May, the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance debuted a fully functioning tokenization system for cheap and almost instant settlement of cross-border payments. The US, UK, Japan, South Korea, France, Switzerland, and Mexico are driving the system, two years in development with the BIS and the IIF, setting the stage to challenge China’s previous frontrunner position in the race to modernize the payment system for global trade. We explain the significance of Project Agora here: https://t.co/gARNWxEi8G

#DigitalTrade #CrossBorderPayments #Fintech #GlobalFinance #Tokenization

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Access the full report here: https://t.co/S25y6VLcpY

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

The emerging Asian market for nuclear energy is central to US geostrategic security. America has a window of opportunity to play a key role with its design expertise on small modular reactors, strong safety record, and non-proliferation culture. But to contend with the foothold China and Russia already have in the region, the US must commit to alliances, rethink aspects of its nuclear energy export policy, and beef up its business case.

Logan Mintz, director at the Washington-based non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative, weighs the American pitch in the first of a three-part Hinrich Foundation series on the geopolitics, governance, and technologies behind the race for nuclear energy in Asia.

Part Two on China and Russia’s roles in the sector will be published on 16 June. Part Three on the questions and challenges facing Southeast Asia’s search for energy security will be published on 23 June. Watch this space.

#NuclearEnergy #EnergySecurity #Geopolitics #AsiaPacific #StrategicCompetition

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

A group of WTO members is taking the E-Commerce Agreement to the edge of the WTO system, raising questions about plurilateral rulemaking and the limits of consensus in an increasingly multipolar world. Learn more with this discussion guide based on a paper by Peter Ungphakorn, former Senior Information Officer at the WTO: https://t.co/5U9pyIYvbb

#WTO #DigitalTrade #ECommerce #TradePolicy #TradeGovernance

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Trump’s tariff agenda might have taken a battering, but it hasn't stopped Washington from launching one wave of Section 301 investigations after another. Sixty countries, covering just over 99% of all US goods imports, have been accused by the USTR of failing to prevent the importation of goods made with forced labor. With another case against 16 major trading partners coming, the penalties could soon stack up. This time, the tariff wall around the United States might become far more permanent, our Head of Trade Policy, Deborah Elms writes: https://t.co/j6nKmLP7MQ

#USTradePolicy #Section301 #Tariffs #GlobalTrade #TradeGovernance

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

The Hinrich Foundation, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and Digital Policy Alert jointly hosted a workshop on 19 May on building agentic AI to support research, analysis, and reporting by helping teams manage large volumes of information more effectively. Catch up on a summary of what's been discussed and see who participated: https://t.co/UzCRnBq04V

#AgenticAI #ArtificialIntelligence #ResearchInnovation #KnowledgeManagement #FutureOfWork

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

Over the past year, the Trump administration has secured equity stakes and struck bespoke deals with at least 10 US companies. Unlike historical crisis-driven bailouts, these recent government interventions mark an unprecedented shift toward proactive, strategic investment for national objectives. The Hinrich Foundation #hfAI Lab used some LLMs to see which of these deals will provide America with the greatest return. Check out the assessment here: https://t.co/ki4Wxh7iFt

#IndustrialPolicy #EconomicSecurity #USTradePolicy #InvestmentStrategy

[Hinrich Foundation @hinrichfdn]

An increasingly protectionist world leaves trade-exposed economies with fewer easy options. For the CPTPP and the EU, the answer is not to merge or to create a new free trade agreement, but an adaptive accord to seize immediate opportunities for collaboration while remaining flexible enough to navigate the choppy trade waters ahead, Head of Trade Policy Deborah Elms writes: https://t.co/yCtzC5IioA

#CPTPP #EuropeanUnion #TradePolicy #TradeGovernance #EconomicCooperation