After years of economic shocks, tariffs and growing international contestation, the global economic environment has changed, with countries making greater use of economic levers to pursue their national interests, creating new risks as well as opportunities for the UK. 

This capping paper from the 2025–26 Heywood Fellowship sets out sets out a new economic statecraft for 2040, a strategy that calls for the UK to invest in agency, resilience and competitiveness to meet the challenges of the new global economic order.