A page made by easylandx
A landing page built from Ed Conway's Trade World: the hidden supply chains behind everyday life, and the strategy playbook for a more fragmented world.
Core messages
Trade isn't background noise to modern life — it's the skeleton holding it up. Conway's book maps how that skeleton was built for speed, not strength.
Every device you own passes through dozens of countries before it reaches your hand — raw material, refinement, assembly, shipping — mostly unseen.
Just-in-time logistics squeezed out every spare buffer. Lean is cheap, until one delay anywhere becomes a shortage everywhere.
Ports, pipelines and processing plants aren't neutral anymore. They're leverage — used deliberately in trade disputes and standoffs.
Open global markets are giving way to friend-shoring and resource nationalism. Rebuilding at home is necessary — and slow, and costly.
Essential lessons
The Strait of Malacca, the Suez Canal, the Taiwan Strait — a handful of narrow points carry outsized risk for the whole system. See the map below.
Software and finance get the headlines, but rare earths, cargo ships and refineries are still what keep the lights on.
Onshoring builds resilience, but it also means higher costs, slower innovation, and new competition over the same raw materials.
Choke points
Hover or tap a marker.
Framework
Tap a step to open it.
Audit supply chains down to raw material sources — not just Tier-1 suppliers, but where the lithium, cobalt and copper actually come from.
Build strategic reserves and diversify freight routes, so one blocked lane doesn't stall the whole operation.
Diversify source markets across geopolitically aligned, stable partners rather than one region.
Onshore critical processing and manufacturing steps, closing the gap between raw material and finished part.
Circular models — battery recycling, e-waste recovery — turn domestic waste into a strategic reserve of its own.