“We will not accept a new Cold War between the United States and China”, Brazil’s President Lula da Silva declared in his victory speech in October 2022, “we will have relations with everyone.” It is a sentiment echoed by leaders across the Global South. “Malaysia’s position is clear”, announced the country’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, earlier this year to an international audience of policymakers, business leaders and diplomats. “The country remains non-aligned and will not be dragged into any global power rivalries.”
This is a strategic sentiment shared by a growing group of nations: the pursuit of what some scholars have termed “polyalignment.” Increasingly, developing countries refuse to fall in line with one of Beijing, Washington, or Brussels. Instead, they are forcefully asserting their rights to develop trade, investment and security partnerships with whoever they wish. In doing so, they are drawing on the principles, symbols and rhetoric of the Non-Aligned Movement, the coalition of Third World countries who, during the First Cold War, chose to join neither the US nor the rival Soviet geopolitical blocs.
As Kenyan president William Ruto stated last year in response to a CNN journalist’s question about whether the country would choose between Chinese or US investment: “we are neither facing West nor East; we are facing forward where opportunities are”—a modern twist on the famous quote from Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1960 declared that “we face neither East nor West; we face forward.” Past histories of non-alignment clearly live through the current discourse and practice of polyalignment, informing how Southern leaders interpret and navigate today’s geopolitical rivalries, as well as the risks and opportunities available to them. In doing so, however, they highlight a sobering truth: we are now entering a new era of great power competition, a Second Cold War, whose roots lie deep in the twentieth century.
During the First Cold War, spanning roughly 1947 to 1991, the primary competition between the rival geopolitical and ideological blocs took the form of containment. For nearly fifty years, the great powers competed for territorial influence while seeking to limit the expansion of their rivals. It was this era of great power rivalry that gave birth to the vision of non-alignment, an attempt on the part of Third World countries to advance their strategic autonomy and to assert the principles of self-determination.
Today’s geopolitical rivalries, however, take place in a globalized economy far more deeply interconnected than it was at mid-century. This new Cold War is the product of the world birthed by neoliberal globalization, which brought forth both a new global interdependence between nations as well as a huge shift in the balance of power and economic activity in the global economy. The US is no longer the unchallenged global power. It is now in competition with China for trade, investment and technological supremacy. This conflict, fuelled by virulent nationalisms on both sides, has intensified greatly since the first Trump presidency, reaching new heights under the Biden administration and again under Trump 2.0.
With this shift towards interdependence in the global economy, the very nature of geopolitics has changed. It is not simply over territorial control that powers now vie, but over the newly vital strategic networks that connect the world economy. In this sense, this Second Cold War is less about containment than it is about connectivity. The connective tissue that meshes the world economy includes global production networks (supply chains for semiconductors, quantum materials, electric vehicle batteries, “clean” tech, medical devices, and biotech products), financial networks (payments systems, financial infrastructures), digital networks (digital platforms, AI, data centres, cybersecurity), connective infrastructure networks (transport, telecoms, internet, logistics) and networks of both fossil-based and renewable energy production. The ability to shape and utilize these, or to control their strategic nodes, is the source of tremendous power and influence. To truly understand the vision of Trump’s second term, we must see in it an aggressive attempt to leverage and fortify the structural position of the US in these networks.
Green Network Competition
If this battle to control the connective tissue of the world economy will come to shape the future of geopolitics and globalisation, then it will also define any future climate and energy transition. Many of these networks are of strategic importance for energy security, climate adaptation and climate mitigation—encompassing everything from energy grids to clean transportations systems, low-carbon manufacturing, carbon management and battery technology, to the extraction and processing of critical transition minerals. In recent years, China has established strategic control of several of these green networks, with Chinese firms commanding a dominant position in solar capacity, wind power and EV supply chains. According to the International Energy Agency, the country accounts for between 40 and 98 per cent of the global manufacturing capacity for key clean technologies and components. China also controls the entire transnational supply chain of a series of critical minerals, particularly the extraction, processing and refining of rare earths, while being the world’s leading producer and refiner of more than 20 critical materials.
This dominance is increasingly perceived by China’s geopolitical rivals as a threat. One of the explicit aims of Biden’s economic agenda, by means of industrial policy and tax credits, was to compete with China on clean tech and renewables, all while giving a simultaneous boost to domestic oil and gas production in order to deepen American dominance of fossil-based energy networks. As Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, put it: “clean-energy supply chains are at risk of being weaponized [by China] in the same way as oil in the 1970s, or natural gas in Europe in 2022. So through the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re taking action.”
While Trump has since repealed many of these green initiatives, his foreign and domestic policy retains its obsession with securing critical minerals, the aim being to reduce the country’s dependence on Chinese-controlled networks. An executive order signed on Trump’s first day of office promised to unleash Alaska’s energy and mineral resources “to the fullest extent possible”, while his fixation on Greenland can partly be explained by the Arctic island’s untapped mineral resources. Such considerations may also be a partial driver of his policies in Ukraine. As Trump declared in reference to a potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia: “they have great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth.” Any such deal may well involve the US taking ownership of part of Ukraine’s vast mineral riches, which includes lithium, used for EV batteries, and zirconium, used in jet engines, in exchange for continued military and economic aid.
The EU has also increased its activity in this space. Over the past 18 months, it launched a series of plans, which include the Green Deal Industrial Plan, the European Critical Raw Materials Act, the Net-Zero Industry Act and REPowerEU, to scale up the manufacture of key carbon-neutral technologies for clean energy supply chains. So far, these have had little success; the EU remains caught between the continued dominance of the US and Russia in fossil-based energy networks, on the one hand, and China’s control of green networks on the other. The policies implemented to address the latter are a case in point. In October 2024 the EU imposed tariffs on imports of Chinese EVs in a bid to protect the European automotive industry. It is now planning to demand local production requirements and technology transfers from Chinese EV companies in exchange for investment subsidies. In other words, not only is the EU trying to shield key European firms from competition, it aims to attract Chinese EV investment and technology to the continent. This response betrays the bitter recognition that to compete in the green transition the EU has no choice but to plug into tech and production networks dominated by Chinese actors.
Developing countries are also engaging the new geopolitics of green connectivity with ambitions of their own, straining to position themselves as critical nodes in green global networks. The star ingredient in these strategies is polyalignment. By connecting supply chains and markets between contending global forces, developing countries are hoping to unleash a surge of green foreign investment from a range of institutional and geopolitical actors. If adequately managed, it is hoped, this investment could help them industrialize, climb the green value chain and solidify their positions as hubs of green capitalism.
Needless to say, it is an ambitious gambit. But in a context currently dominated by the mantra of “mobilizing finance for development”, it is a promising one. The bet of the former strategy is that by enticing large institutional investors, hedge funds and insurers to bring new liquidity into “investable” assets, that funding for climate and development goals can be secured. Green connectivity strategies, on the other hand, focus less on scaling up external financing or producing alluring assets for investors, and more on attracting greenfield investment from manufacturing and energy corporations. This already appears to be bearing fruit, and there are indications it is strengthening the hand of some developing countries as they bargain with states and corporate actors over market access and technological transfers.
“Friends of Everyone, Enemies of No One”
Consider, for example, the case of Morocco, fast emerging as a master polyaligner and “connector country.” In recent years, Morocco has leveraged its strategic location at the intersection of Europe, Africa and the Mediterranean, positioning itself as a gateway to vast markets thanks to its free trade agreements with the EU, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the US. Its robust network of connective infrastructure, abundant natural resources for the green transition (including phosphates, cobalt, solar, and wind) and the presence in the country of a pre-existing industrial cluster of export-oriented firms tightly integrated into European supply chains, has allowed Morocco to register record levels of greenfield foreign direct investment in green manufacturing including EVs, green hydrogen and solar and wind energy. There is also evidence that the Moroccan state has been actively playing competitors against one another. According to the CEO of a major French company, “the Moroccan Minister for Industry told us that the Chinese were contacting him every day and that we had to wake up before it was too late.”
Polyalignment has been similarly central to Indonesia’s recent economic development strategy. According to the minister of foreign affairs, Retno Marsudi, the country “places great emphasis on an active role and engagement with all countries.” “No bloc, no problem”, she declared. The broader aim has been for Indonesia to position itself as a nodal point in EV battery and stainless steel production by leveraging its control of critical nickel resources. The country has attracted record levels of foreign investment, primarily but not exclusively from Chinese groups, allowing it to expand its refining capacities considerably. At the same time, Indonesia has pursued trade agreements with countries in the Global North, particularly the US. It is also drawing on a variety of sources to fund its green industrial ambitions, including signing a $20 billion partnership with the G7 and a $100 billion Green Investment and Finance Partnership with China to fund the decarbonization of its coal-powered energy system.
Other countries—notably Hungary, Vietnam, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Kazakhstan and Malaysia—are employing similar means. In the process, these polyalignment-cum-green connectivity strategies are fast becoming a core feature of the global geopolitical landscape, fuelling hopes and dreams for green capitalist development.
In this sense, the non-alignment of the past and today’s polyalignment differ in fundamental ways. The former was a collective project, rooted in transnational Third World solidarity. Its ambition was to assert a radical alternative vision of development, to transform global capitalism through mechanisms like the New International Economic Order, a set of proposals put forward in 1974 to transform the international economic system in favour of Third World countries on the basis of economic justice and self-determination. By contrast, contemporary polyalignment, for the most part, consists of unilateral attempts by developing countries to improve their relative position in a competitive world economy. To put it bluntly, where non-aligned countries wanted a seat at the capitalist table in order to collectively flip it, contemporary polyaligned countries want something qualitatively different: a larger slice of the pie on the way to a green capitalist future.
Risky Business
Even before Trump returned to the White House there were signs of fragility. Notably, polyalignment and connectivity strategies have the potential to be self-cannibalizing, particularly when pursued unilaterally by countries in competition with one another. Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Poland and Czechia, for instance, are all striving to position themselves as EV production and export bases for rich western European markets. They are unlikely to all succeed. Automakers can only invest in a limited number of production sites, and these countries cannot all become critical nodes of EV production. Similarly, several African countries, notably Egypt, Namibia, Mauritania, Kenya and South Africa, are fighting to become strategic hubs of green hydrogen production and export to Europe. While the EU may seek a diversity of partners on the African continent, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which all of these countries can establish themselves as key players. In short, in the pursuit of these strategies, gains for some may well be predicated upon the losses of others.
The delicate geopolitical act of threading the needle of polyalignment can also be undermined by powerful domestic interest groups. In the case of Indonesia, the predatory domestic state-capitalist class benefits directly from its close links with Chinese firms. This ruling politico-business oligarchy has thus skewed the country towards a dependence on China, effectively thwarting the state’s wider polyalignment. In doing so, it has demonstrated that the possibilities for polyalignment are not a matter of diplomacy alone: they are also a function of class and political economy.
Developing countries may also find themselves caught in the crossfire of rival geopolitical powers each vying for control over key economic networks. Countries like Morocco, Vietnam and Mexico, for example, are increasingly perceived as “backdoors” for Chinese investment and exports to western markets. It is not hard to imagine a future in which this leads directly to sanctions, tariffs, investment restrictions or behind-the-scenes diplomatic pressure. There is already anecdotal evidence that the US is pressuring countries to increase their scrutiny of foreign investment into key sectors, or face severe repercussions.
Enter Trump
All of this was well underway before Trump re-entered the scene. For some time, rival powers have been increasingly willing to use coercion to shape policy actions in developing countries. Even still, Trump’s return threatens to throw a wrench in developing countries’ pursuit of polyalignment.
Bullying has a self-affirming logic of its own. “The question in the case of the Trump Presidency”, as historian Adam Tooze writes, “is how much is instrumental and how much of the bullying is nothing more than that, an end in itself.” Despite his exuberance and impulsivity, the logic of Trump 2.0 is structured by the particular geopolitical context in which it exists, namely the rising tensions of the Second Cold War and the global competition over networks and connectivity. Trump’s use of bullying as a mode of governance—his uninhibited use of threat and intimidation to humiliate and coerce friend and foe alike—will only compound the already growing global geopolitical risks that lie in wait for any country hoping to pursue polyalignment. Indeed, after only a few weeks in office, Trump had already bullied countries as diverse as Panama, Colombia, Canada, Mexico, Ukraine, Denmark and South Africa in pursuit of his geopolitical goals.
In the case of Panama, this included explicit reference to China. As Trump put it, “China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.” Despite being a characteristically conspicuous lie—China does not in fact operate the canal, nor did the US give it to Panama—there are Chinese investments in the port infrastructure surrounding the canal. This the US state perceives as a threat. The transoceanic waterway is a strategic site for US trade, with over 70 per cent of transits through the canal heading to or from US ports. The aim of Trump’s attack, viewed from the White House, was to discipline Panama, a country it sees as in the backyard of American empire, for its relations with China. In this it was effective. Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino, announced soon after that Panama will leave China’s Belt and Road Initiative. A deal is currently being negotiated for a coalition of investors, led by New York-based asset manager BlackRock, to buy out a Chinese investor’s stake in two ports on the canal.
The sweeping tariffs announced by the Trump administration on 2 April’s “Liberation Day” also threaten to upend the plans of developing countries. In Asia, Vietnam and Cambodia have been particularly badly hit, with both initially facing sky-high tariffs of between 40 and 50 per cent. In the short term, those tariffs could undermine plans to position themselves as key nodes in the production networks of global EV, battery technology and solar panel, as well as export bases of green goods to the vast US market. More generally, if the tariffs spark a durable disruption of global trade and a global economic recession, developing countries could be the first, and most deeply, affected.
In the medium term, however, US bullying may just push developing countries further away from American influence—even, perhaps, closer to China, which may now seem the more reliable partner. Alternatively, nations could pursue a self-conscious diversification of trade, investment and technological relations, operating with a variety of strategic partners. The case of Colombia is illuminating here: currently the largest producer of coal in Latin America, Colombia hopes to attract clean energy investments to replace its significant revenues from fossil fuel exports. Its landmark $40 billion climate investment plan, unveiled in October 2024, was expected to be funded in part by the US in the context of its US International Climate Finance Plan, which Trump has now revoked. Instead, according to recent declarations by Colombian environment minister, Susana Muhamad, Colombia is turning to other funders, including but not exclusively China.
It is unclear how larger and mid-sized players will react to a partial US retrenchment, but we can be sure there will be attempts to fill the space vacated. The ability of developing countries to navigate these new rivalries will depend on their developing both individual and collective forms of agency. At the individual level, this agency cannot consist only of agile diplomacy, green industrial policies or carefully crafted long-term development strategies. While necessary, they are nonetheless insufficient. So far, even their most successful implementations in the global South have been undergirded by the state-led packaging of land, labour and nature as “attractive value proposition” for international investors, in the hope of inserting their respective countries into global supply chains. The consequences of this are well known, ranging from indigenous dispossession to the repressive authoritarian regimes and the creation of zones of environmental sacrifice. In the medium term, they risk fostering a lop-sided pattern of “green” industrialisation in the Global South, forcing dependence on the geostrategic imperatives, and the clean tech, of hegemonic powers while compromizing urgent domestic needs.
Breaking this pattern will not be easy. At the very least, it would demand collective forms of polyalignment geared towards regional and cross-regional cooperation, rather than simply marginal improvements in the circumstances of individual nations jockeying for position in an emergent green capitalism. Building collective platforms and developing coordinated tactics that seek to increase the leverage of developing countries will be vital in the fight for renewed green technological transfers, favourable climate financing terms and climate reparations. So too will be the active support and solidarity of progressive forces in the Global North.
It is not possible to simply revive the strategies and jargon of the old Third World version of non-alignment. For progressive forms of Southern-led development to flourish, a renewed, internationalist vision of a post-capitalist ecological transformation is required. Given the increasingly networked and interdependent nature of global capitalism, this task is more difficult than ever—and more urgent.
