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Have to protect ourselves against uncertainty of market access: Jaishankar in US
External affairs minister S Jaishankar said that the world will see the rise of a global workforce over the coming years, regardless of disagreements of where such a workforce will be located
Globalisation will not stop but economic and geopolitical unpredictability has increased sharply, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said in New York on Sunday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“Globalisation will not stop. Doing business with each other will not stop. But it is just that different lines of different intensity and different values will now get re-engineered. And it is that process of re-engineering that we are going through now,” said Jaishankar at an event hosted by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). The minister argued that the world is accelerating towards multipolarity, with countries looking across the world for new partnerships to safeguard their national interest. But this new multipolarity will have to be built by developing national capabilities, he said.
In an oblique reference to the Trump administration, he acknowledged that President Trump’s second term had spurred rapid and unstable change in world politics in a few months. That unpredictability has left countries worried, he said.
“Now, we also have to protect ourselves against the uncertainty of market access. You worry about overdependence on markets just as you worried about overdependence on suppliers and connectivity. Almost the entire economic chain has become far riskier,” Jaishankar added. He declared that both developed nations in Europe, as well as countries in the Global South, were looking to diversify partnerships.
However, the minister also stated that trade was far easier today than ever before and expressed optimism that new trading arrangements and partnership will take hold. He also stated that the world will see the rise of a global workforce over the coming years, regardless of disagreements of where such a workforce will be located.
Jaishankar also continued his engagements at the UN, meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the President of the UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock. He went on to meet with Algeria’s foreign minister Ahmed Attaf and Saudi Arabia’s Faisal bin Farhan to discuss the situation in West Asia. During his national address at the UN General Assembly, Jaishankar expressed India’s support for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Gaza. The veteran diplomat’s engagements in New York this week also focused heavily on India’s partnerships with Europe and in the developing world, particularly in Latin and Central America. Jaishankar participated in multilateral meetings of the BRICS and G20 while also meeting with SICA countries, which is a collective of 8 Central American states, and the CELAC forum, which brings together 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations. Jaishankar also met with leaders from the Pacific Islands in the FIPIC forum in New York.
