How bananas demonstrate globalization

Ian Explains: How Bananas Demonstrate Globalization | GZERO World

If globalization were a fruit, it might be a banana. But while bananas are still popular, globalization not as much lately.

In recent years, part of the pushback against globalization has been led by autocrats who reject things like free trade and the liberal international order.

For them, globalization means losing control, which they don't like one bit. But the world today remains more interconnected than ever, particularly in cyberspace.

So, do they want less globalization, or rather a version that fits their narrative?

Watch the GZERO World episode: The politics of resentment & how authoritarian strongmen gain power.

More from GZERO Media

Argentine President Javier Milei speaks to the media while standing on a vehicle with lawmaker Jose Luis Espert during a La Libertad Avanza rally ahead of legislative elections on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 27, 2025.
REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian

The campaign for Argentina’s legislative election officially launched this week, but it couldn’t have gone worse for President Javier Milei.

US President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on August 26, 2025.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The Trump administration is divided over its approach to Venezuela, according to Venezuelan journalist Tony Frangie Mawad.

A Ukrainian soldier is seen at a checkpoint at the road near a Crimea region border March 9, 2014. Russian forces tightened their grip on Crimea on Sunday despite a U.S. warning to Moscow that annexing the southern Ukrainian region would close the door to diplomacy in a tense East-West standoff.
REUTERS/Viktor Gurniak

60: Ukraine will allow men aged 18–22 to leave the country, easing a wartime ban that kept males under 60 from crossing the border.