How Developing Nations Control Their Future?

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]OPEC was not just a cartel. It was the proof of concept.

[00:00:04]Every time a group of countries discussed collectively managing a strategic commodity, they pointed at OPEC and said, "That is how you do it."

[00:00:13]The UAE just proved that the model breaks the moment one member's balance sheet says the cost of staying exceeds the profit of leaving.

[00:00:21]To see what that means beyond oil, look at Indonesia.

[00:00:25]The country was the world's largest exporter of raw nickel ore, shipping cheap dirt overseas for other nations to process into batteries and capture the final value.

[00:00:35]In 2020, the government banned nickel exports entirely, forcing foreign companies to build processing plants on Indonesian soil.

[00:00:43]Indonesia went from exporting raw dirt to manufacturing battery-grade nickel for the global EV supply chain. The calculation the UAE made about oil, Indonesia made about nickel years earlier.

[00:00:56]That pattern is now playing out in Chile with lithium, Zimbabwe with export quotas, >> [music] >> and China with rare earth restrictions.

[00:01:04]One major risk intelligence firm recorded that 47 developing countries have significantly increased government control over their resources since 2020.

[00:01:14]Every sovereign government is running the same math and reaching the same conclusion.

[00:01:20]Commentators frame this as the collapse of globalization.

[00:01:23]I have spent enough time watching these patterns to know they are misreading the situation.

[00:01:28]Countries are not rejecting markets.

[00:01:30]They are rejecting the specific arrangements that cost them money.

[00:01:34]What we are watching is hypercapitalism applied at the national level.