Peter Zeihan

The international system that underpinned seven decades of economic growth — interconnected supply chains, freely flowing capital, American-guaranteed trade routes — is coming apart. In this keynote, Zeihan maps what deglobalization actually looks like across agriculture, manufacturing, energy, finance, and transportation, and explains which regions, industries, and business models are best and worst positioned for what comes next. This is not a prediction of doom; it is a rigorous, actionable briefing on a structural shift that is already underway.

China's rise was built on three pillars: global trade access, internal political unity, and cheap American-backed capital. All three are eroding. Zeihan examines the consequences of China's decline as the world's manufacturing hub — for supply chains, commodity markets, technology sectors, and the countries competing to absorb the industrial capacity China leaves behind. Organizations that understand this shift early will be positioned to capitalize on one of the largest economic restructurings in modern history.

Population aging, birth rate collapse, and shrinking workforces are already reshaping labor markets, pension systems, consumption patterns, and geopolitical power across Europe, East Asia, and beyond. Zeihan explains which countries have the demographic profiles to thrive over the coming decades, which face structural decline, and what all of it means for trade, investment, and strategic planning. Energy transitions, nearshoring, and the return of industrial policy all play a role in this emerging geography of power.

Modern agricultural trade depends on the same low-risk global logistics networks that are now breaking down. Zeihan examines the geography and demographic realities of global food production, which exporters can sustain their output, where supply shortfalls are most likely, and why American agriculture is uniquely positioned to weather — and benefit from — the disruption ahead. A critical briefing for any organization with exposure to commodity markets, food supply chains, or emerging market risk.

The global energy sector is as complicated and opaque as it is omnipresent and essential, and it has adapted to not simply the changes in the global economic system, but the global political system. Countries that were weak to nonexistent in ages past now are major players in global energy markets, both as producers and consumers. The system that has allowed this evolution now is under fire, and soon the stability that has enabled the energy sector to create its global webwork will end. What will follow will be a world both more chaotic and poorer, one in which the process of finding, producing, transporting and refining energy will simply be beyond the military and financial capacity of most players. Only the largest, smartest and richest entities will be able to maintain – much less expand – their networks. Far from its final days, the era of the supermajor has not yet begun.