The New Geography of Business

How tariffs, technology controls and industrial policy are changing where companies sell, source, build and invest

By Dr. Maralani | August 2026

Globalisation was once presented as a map of expanding opportunity. Companies compared markets, labour costs, supplier ecosystems, logistics and tax, then selected the locations that offered the strongest commercial case.

A location can offer attractive costs but fail the origin test required for market access. A supplier can remain technically capable while becoming commercially unusable because an export licence, sanction or end-use restriction changes. A market can remain large while new tariffs, data rules or procurement conditions weaken the economics of serving it.

Politics has not replaced economics. Policy has entered the economics.

The leadership challenge is therefore not to find a permanent list of winning countries. It is to understand which routes remain viable when the conditions attached to trade, technology, ownership, data, finance and logistics change.

The map is no longer neutral

For many years, geopolitical risk was treated as a discount applied to an otherwise stable business case. Today, policy can determine whether that business case exists at all.

A tariff changes landed cost. A rule of origin changes which factory can serve a customer. An export control can determine whether a semiconductor, manufacturing tool or software service can be supplied. Investment screening can change who may own an asset. A subsidy can alter the viable scale and location of an industry.

Global trade is not disappearing. Goods and services continue to move across borders, Asia remains deeply integrated and companies still use international networks to reach scale. Those networks are simply governed by a less uniform set of permissions and exceptions.

The correct question is no longer simply, “Is this an attractive country?” It is, “Under which conditions can this product, technology, ownership structure and supply route operate here?”

Market access has become conditional

A company does not enter a market in the abstract. It enters with a specific product, source of origin, technology stack, financing arrangement and customer promise.

Each element may carry a different condition.

• Tariffs and trade remedies affect price, but their practical impact depends on product classification, origin, quotas, exemptions and customer treatment.
• Rules of origin determine whether moving final assembly is enough to secure preferential access or whether deeper local value creation is required.
• Technology controls can make access dependent on destination, ownership, customer and end use.
• Industrial policy can improve the economics of one location while local-content or procurement rules restrict the addressable market of production elsewhere.
• Data, sanctions and investment screening can create borders inside cloud architecture, payment routes, beneficial ownership and software support.

Market access is therefore not a permanent yes-or-no attribute. It is a set of conditions attached to a particular business flow.

Political relationships are too broad to price a decision

The United States and China are using trade, technology and industrial policy to pursue strategic objectives, yet their commercial systems have not separated instantly. Companies must manage the transition in which restrictions are active while qualified alternatives remain incomplete.

The United States and European Union remain deeply integrated allies, but strategic alignment does not remove commercial negotiation. Tariffs, sector treatments, standards, energy, critical minerals and origin rules can still produce different outcomes for different products.

The European Union and China combine substantial trade with stronger scrutiny of subsidies, dependencies and economic security. Other governments preserve room for selective alignment: cooperating with Western partners on security, trading with China and pursuing their own industrial priorities.

Labels such as ally, rival, partner or neutral are too broad to support a business decision. The relevant unit is the product, transaction, technology and route.

Connector economies must offer more than geography

As the largest relationships become more conditional, companies are considering ASEAN, India, Mexico, Mercosur, the Gulf and selected African economies as additional markets, production locations or connectors between systems.

The opportunity is real, but geography alone does not create durable advantage.

A connector economy needs productive depth, usable market access, reliable institutions, resilient infrastructure and political durability. A trade agreement matters only when the product meets its origin requirements. A new assembly location may not reduce exposure if it depends on the same upstream material, processor or technology permission.

The strongest connector strategies create demonstrable local value through engineering, processing, specialised services, workforce capability or supplier development—giving the location an economic purpose beyond a temporary tariff difference.

Leaders should build the case backwards from the customer: confirm the market-access conditions, determine the origin evidence required, identify which capabilities must exist locally and test whether the route remains viable if an incentive or political relationship weakens.

The real geography is inside the business flow

A country map is useful for orientation but too coarse for management. One company can be exposed to several different geographies at the same time:

• Revenue and customers: where demand sits, how the customer is reached and which procurement, tariff, payment or data condition applies.
• Components and materials: where critical inputs are mined, processed, manufactured and qualified.
• Technology, software and data: where chips, equipment, cloud services, models, licences, updates and technical support originate.
• Capital, payments and insurance: which currencies, banks, clearing systems, insurers, owners and approval processes make the transaction executable.
• Energy and logistics: which grids, fuels, ports, corridors, cables and warehouses support delivery.
• People and knowledge: where specialist skills, management depth, intellectual property and research capability reside.

These flows intersect. A product may be manufactured in one country, depend on software hosted in another, contain material processed in a third and qualify for access under the origin rules of a fourth. The operational risk is often hidden in those intersections.

Replace production cost with policy-adjusted economics

Traditional location analysis begins with unit cost and adds freight, tax and inventory. That is no longer sufficient.

A policy-adjusted business case also includes tariffs, origin compliance, certification, licensing, sanctions screening, data controls, insurance, clearance time and the cost of transition. Some of these costs appear in the invoice. Others appear as additional working capital, legal effort, delayed revenue, reduced flexibility or a customer commitment that can no longer be met.

Time belongs in the economics. A theoretical alternative is not a commercial option until it can deliver the required quality, permission, volume and service within the recovery window.

Blanket reshoring can create false security by replacing foreign concentration with domestic concentration or reducing scale. Independence is justified where interruption would create an unacceptable outcome and no timely substitute exists. Other dependencies may be better managed through diversification, regionalisation, redesign or retention with explicit triggers.

Scenario design should follow routes, not headlines

No leadership team can forecast every tariff, election, conflict or policy change. It can, however, prepare for changes in the assumptions supporting a material decision.

A useful route-based scenario asks whether the route remains:

1. Open and economic — permitted and commercially attractive.
2. Open but degraded — still possible, but weakened by cost, delay, compliance or customer concern.
3. Restricted with a workable transition — disrupted, but replaceable within a defined period.
4. Unavailable within the recovery window — unable to protect the required business outcome.

Management should separate a signal that an assumption may be weakening from the trigger showing that a decision threshold has been crossed and the action agreed in response. This avoids reacting to every headline or waiting until disruption is already visible in performance.

Questions for the leadership team

• Which three geographic assumptions carry the greatest value at risk?
• Where does the business depend on preferential origin or temporary tariff treatment?
• Which critical input has no qualified alternative inside its recovery window?
• Which technology or data flow depends on a licence, owner or location that is not actively monitored?
• Where are apparent alternatives exposed to the same processor, port, grid, financial channel or policy?
• Which incentive-supported investment becomes unattractive if public support declines?
• Where could stronger evidence of origin, provenance or ownership create commercial advantage?
• Which live supplier, market, technology or investment decision should be tested now?

The new geography of business is not a map of countries to enter and countries to avoid. It is a management discipline.

Companies still benefit from international scale and specialised ecosystems. But those benefits increasingly depend on where value was created, which permissions were used and how the countries involved relate to one another. The best-prepared companies will see their business flows, price policy into the economics, preserve credible options and reopen decisions when assumptions change.

Geography is no longer background. It is an operating choice.

Download the complete executive briefing

This full 16-page monthly strategy briefing contains the complete The New Geography of Business analysis, including the supporting evidence and sources, conditional market access, strategic relationships, connector economies, the six business flows, policy-adjusted economics, technology permissions, resilience choices, scenario design, governance, a 90-day leadership agenda and questions for the next executive meeting.

In addition, you can access strategic assessment capabilities within Cogliva, which apply source-grounded analysis to your organisation and help identify the assumptions, dependencies and decisions requiring attention.

Enter your email address below to receive Issue 02 of The Monthly Strategic Briefing, The New Geography of Business, and future issues.

Subscribe

About Dr. Maralani

Dr. Maralani is a senior executive and advisor on business strategy, transformation and applied AI, with three decades of international management experience. His work focuses on translating external change and complex business challenges into clear strategic choices, practical plans and measurable management results.

Listen on The Monthly Strategic Briefing Podcast

The New Geography of Business — Issue 02 – The Monthly Strategic Briefing

Globalisation is not ending, but access to markets, technology, capital and supply networks is becoming more conditional. Tariffs, rules of origin, export controls, industrial policy, sanctions, data requirements and political relationships increasingly determine whether a commercially attractive route can actually operate.The management response is not indiscriminate reshoring or a simple division of the world into safe and unsafe countries. Leaders need to trace the business flows behind each product, service and investment, price policy into the economics, preserve credible options and review a geographic decision when one of its critical assumptions changes.To get monthly briefings and the podcast episodes register at www.drmaralani.com/subscribe