The end of hyper-globalization: a historical opportunity for Brazil

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Coppe/UFRJ welcomed professor and economist Eduardo Giannetti for his Opening Lecture of 2026. Addressing sensitive themes such as financial crises, tariff wars and geopolitical conflicts, Giannetti conveyed a message of optimism: Brazil has the conditions to reposition itself advantageously in the international scenario.

“This scenario of the end of hyper-globalization favors us geopolitically. We have mineral resources, clean energy, fresh water; we have room for maneuver. At this moment when the United States, the European Union and China are competing for strategic markets, Brazil can negotiate simultaneously with all three and attract advantageous conditions to add value to its own products,” stated Giannetti.

According to Giannetti, hyper-globalization began in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the world economy towards greater liberalization, increased trade relations and interdependence between countries.

“We are living through the end of this cycle and three episodes in world history are crucial to the end of hyper-globalization. The first is the 2008-2009 financial crisis, which exposed the limits of the financialization of the economy. In 1980, there was one dollar of financial capital for every dollar of real wealth. Now, there are 12 dollars of financial capital for every dollar of the real economy. There is a growing disconnection between what is produced and the money created by financial transactions, and this intolerable asymmetry is reaching a limit.”

“The second chapter was the Covid-19 pandemic. It exposed that the more interdependent a system is, the more vulnerable it is to the breaking of a link in that chain. The world realized its dependence on a few suppliers of strategic inputs. More than 80% of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) were produced in China and India. About 90% of highly complex chips are made in Taiwan. The purely economic logic of seeking the lowest cost is being replaced by a concern for diversification of partners and security.”

For Giannetti, the third chapter in the end of hyper-globalization has a name: Donald Trump. “The American president unilaterally declared a trade war on the world and this created widespread chaos in tariffs. How will entrepreneurs plan their investments in this scenario of tariff instability and legal uncertainty?” the economist questioned.

How to reposition Brazil in the international scenario?

According to Giannetti’s assessment, despite all the turbulence and uncertainty that mark the international scenario, Brazil can, “if it knows how to take this step, recover a dynamism of convergence towards a high-income economy pattern that we lost a long time ago.”

According to the economist, the Brazilian economy maintained a vigorous dynamic, seeking to become a high-income country, from the Second World War until the 1980s. “Hyper-globalization begins and we lose our footing. Brazil doubled down on import substitution at a time when the world was opening up to trade and becoming interconnected,” he lamented.

“Only 12 countries have overcome the middle-income trap in the last 70 years. What do they have in common? They have all increased the exportability of their GDP (the weight of exports in their economies). Some, like the Asian tigers, did this by exporting technology. Others, like Ireland and Spain, export services. Australia, New Zealand and Norway export commodities. Brazil has export potential in all three (technology, services and commodities),” he added.

“At the same time, we should do as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney observed and seek partnerships with other middle powers, such as Canada, Mexico, Indonesia and Vietnam.”

Culture as an optimistic factor

Amid the many reflections raised by the audience present in Coppe’s auditorium, Eduardo Giannetti also spoke about education and highlighted that there is no possible future if Brazil does not improve primary education. “The future of the country will not be decided in a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) or on the Stock Exchange, but rather in our thousands of classrooms.”

“I am optimistic about Brazil. I think we have a condition and a promise of originality in our culture. I wrote about this in Utopian Tropics. Our Afro-Indigenous heritage gives us the ability to offer a real alternative to this way of life that culminates in deaths from despair (suicides, opioid abuse, among others). A less competitive, more playful, more friendly way of life that puts human relationships in the foreground,” concluded the writer, a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Integrating Engineering to other knowledges

For Coppe’s director, Professor Suzana Kahn, the Opening Lecture is an opportunity for students to broaden their knowledge beyond the scientific and technological issues faced in the day-to-day work of engineering.

“These other areas of knowledge are essential for the development of our students and our research, allowing us to be connected to the transformations we have been seeing in the world,” said the professor.

The audience participated actively, with questions covering topics such as the Chinese economy, universal basic income, industrial policy, democracy, culture and much more. Watch the complete Opening Lecture now on Coppe’s YouTube  channel and understand why Brazil may be facing one of the greatest strategic opportunities in its history.