Abraham Newman of Georgetown University Speaks on “Weaponized Global Networks” as Economic Security Global Forum Weeks Head Toward Conclusion

The Japan News

2:00 JST, December 17, 2025

A symposium on “Surviving the Age of Weaponized Global Networks” was held in Tokyo on Tuesday as the Economic Security Global Forum Weeks moves toward its close this week.

During the weeks, with the Tokyo Economic Security Forum on Monday as a central event, government officials, scholars and businesspeople from around the world discussed a wide range of themes including artificial intelligence, supply chains and cyber security.

A total of nearly 30 events will have been held during the Global Forum Weeks, which began in September.

‘Weaponized global networks’

The symposium on “Surviving the Age of Weaponized Global Networks,” organized by the Japan External Trade Organization’s Institute of Developing Economies, consisted of speeches by three renowned researchers from Japan and abroad, followed by a panel discussion.

Prof. Abraham Newman of Georgetown University in Washington gave a speech titled “Navigating a World of Weaponized Interdependence.”

He posited that a large number of global networks in the realms of communications, production and finance, among other areas, can be said to run the global economy and are often highly concentrated or centralized. He further stated this web of centralizing power has been built for the advantage of global powers such as the United States, China and the European Union.

Newman said that U.S. President Donald Trump is using networks as tools “for a very different set of objectives,” namely domestic political goals and deconstructing the liberal rules-based order. He said that unlike in the past, the “tools are increasingly used for bargaining leverage,” and as a result, “economic coercion is being used … to get companies and countries to barter for exemptions from this pressure.”

However, he also said that a significant challenge for which the United States “is not prepared” has emerged, as a “proliferation of players” are also using global networks for power.

For midsized countries, which are “caught between the U.S., China [and] the European Union,” Newman emphasized the need for “international cooperative efforts to protect the world from the bad consequences.” They can “diversify their exports and imports” to “neutralize the threat of coercion.”

The two other speakers, Mireya Solis, director of the Center for Asia policy studies at the Brookings Institution, and Satoshi Inomata, senior research fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies, also gave lectures, after which a panel discussion was held.