This talk examines global supply chains as central instruments of contemporary economic statecraft. As geoeconomic competition intensifies, states increasingly seek leverage not only through formal trade policy and sanctions, but through the strategic management of dependence, access, and opacity across logistics, resources, and production networks. Drawing on recent developments in critical minerals, maritime transport, and energy trade, the discussion situates supply chains as core infrastructure of power in the international system rather than neutral conduits of exchange.

The talk then turns to the darker margins of this system, where “dirty” minerals, shadow shipping, and sanctions-evasion networks complicate prevailing assumptions about transparency and control. These practices reveal how economic coercion and counter-coercion are increasingly exercised through informal, deniable, and fragmented channels. The analysis highlights the limits of existing frameworks for understanding economic statecraft and argues for a more granular approach to geoeconomics—one attentive to logistics, enforcement gaps, and the political economy of evasion shaping contemporary strategic competition.