As precious gifts go, olive oil, gallium and container ships don’t quite hold the same festive symbolism as gold, frankincense and myrrh. Yet as Christmas approaches, let us appreciate the true magi of globalisation in 2024: consumer rights activists from Spain, mineral dealers from Japan and shipbuilders from China.
The year has seen the usual stream of warnings that trade is about to collapse. There are fewer follow-up stories detailing how systems coped, how markets reacted and how problems moderated or disappeared. I may repeatedly harp on this particular theme but someone has to be a counterweight to the catastrophising about globalisation, and it turns out it’s me.
So let’s have a look at the crises that didn’t happen or eased this year. First up are the sharp increases in global olive oil prices, which more than doubled between mid-2022 and mid-2023, after droughts in Europe. Spain, the world’s largest exporter and one of its biggest consumers of olive oil, where it goes by the name of oro líquido (liquid gold), was understandably distressed.