East Asia’s manufacturing escalator has slowed – AI alone will not restart it

Which brings us back to New York. The UNGA debate focused on safety, ethics and access, all real concerns. But the economic terms of the AI economy are being set somewhere else, and mostly outside multilateral forums.

The region’s AI export boom rests on unilateral decisions of importing markets. Most AI-related goods remain exempt from US tariffs. What is granted unilaterally can be withdrawn unilaterally. The boom also rests on an investment cycle, with the largest US hyperscalers spending more than US$1 trillion over 2025 and 2026, which the World Bank warns could reverse if it proves to have run ahead of demand.

Meanwhile, the rules that will decide who captures value from AI – on cross-border data flows, digitally delivered services, standards and export controls – are being written unilaterally or at best in bilateral and mini plurilateral deals and national security reviews. Most developing countries have little say in any of them.

When developing countries ask the UN for a voice in setting AI standards, they are making a trade policy demand too, whether or not they frame it that way. Standards, services commitments and data rules are a large part of trade governance. Treating AI governance and trade governance as separate conversations suits those who already dominate both.

So what still should work for emerging economies as their growth drivers? Openness still works, but openness to services, technology and ideas now matters more than cheap labour and economies of scale. Countries need to compete on tasks rather than sectors, invest in physical and digital connectivity and skills, and reform services regulation so that their manufacturers and digital exporters can draw on efficiently provided inputs. And they need to treat the multilateral rulebook as something worth fighting for: not because it is perfect, but because the alternative is a world in which the terms are set by the few with the most compute.

East Asia has shown, once again, that it can build what the world wants to buy. The harder task is making sure it also has a hand in writing the rules under which it is sold. And, just as crucially, it must put more of what it builds to work at home.