The Southern Axis: How Africa and Latin America Could Redefine Global Trade

At the margins of the World Trade Organization’s MC14 in Yaoundé, a quiet idea started to took shape: Africa and Latin America may be moving toward a new axis of global trade. South–South trade now accounts for roughly a quarter of global flows, yet exchanges between these two regions remain minimal. The real constraint is not geography, but weak logistics: limited shipping routes, thin air links, and fragmented digital systems. In today’s economy, distance is defined by connectivity. What makes this alignment plausible is a deeper compatibility. Both regions operate through hybrid economic systems where formal markets coexist with trust-based, relational networks. This shared logic (often overlooked in conventional trade analysis) can facilitate business linkages where institutional frameworks alone fall short. Read our article on Latinoamérica21 (available also in Spanish and Portuguese).