Influence of COVID-19 on World Connection Business & Marketing Essay

Influence of COVID-19 on World Connection
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Influence of COVID-19 on World Connection
COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is, certainly, the latest pandemic that has withheld all spheres of progress, both in the local and the global contexts. The effects of the disease are significantly comparable to the echoes of Thomas Friedman in his book, ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded’. While he champions the use of clean energy as a critical way of addressing global warming, there is an expressed convergence of global warming, globalization, and population growth which he describes as hot, flat, and crowded, respectively. With special attention to America, the world is ‘Flat’, offering a uniform economic playing field with reduced barriers between individuals and countries (Friedman, 2008). The pandemic has, however, altered the situation and changed what the author referred to as ‘Flat’.
Coronavirus has adversely affected the global supply chain, with a majority of countries having little left to connect them. There is a trend of borders getting shut with various countries in Europe and beyond, adopting lockdowns. While corporations continue to experience operations downtime, all other people are affected by the continued downsizing by most companies due to a lack of raw materials. For example, American bands like Costco, Walmart, and Levies have often relied on supplies from countries like Lesotho, in South Africa. Further, Trumbull (2020) explains that these garment factories employ tens of thousands of people who churn out skinny jeans and sweatshirts for American corporations. The emergence of the virus has a ripple effect on Lesotho’s textile industry, which depends on importation from China, leading to a precarious condition of the global supply chain.
Additionally, COVID-19 has changed this pillar (Flat) of Thomas Friedman’s concentration in the trading platform. The internalization of trade is guided by signed international trade agreements among interest nations. Even the already signed bilateral agreements in trade depend on the policies, which can, unfortunately, be changed accord...