Hegemony reveals itself more often in “the operating model that puts that power to work” than in the sheer total amount of power. When alliances and norms are treated as the default, the world responds predictably; when deals and pressure are treated as the default, the world moves faster but is shaken more easily. The change now taking shape begins not from America suddenly becoming stronger, but from the fact that the way it mixes pressure and exceptions, negotiation and retaliation, has become more sophisticated.

The core of this operating model is simple. A conditional sentence—“If you do X for us, we will do Y for you”—moves to the front line of diplomacy, security, and trade. Tariffs do not move on their own, and defense does not move on its own; they are bundled as levers that push one another. As a result, rather than the world splitting neatly into two at once, it becomes fragmented at the level of “items, alliances, and companies,” and it begins to move in a direction where different rules are laid over each fragment.

In deal-based hegemony, tariffs are not a line item in trade policy but a call button that pulls the other side into the negotiating room. Imposing a 25% tariff on certain high-performance AI chips while leaving broad exceptions for data centers, startups, and consumer use is a classic way of creating leverage not through “total war” but through “precision strikes + exception design.” It hits hard while moderating industrial shock, and at the same time it leaves room for negotiation.

What matters here is not the tariff rate itself, but the way tariffs change corporate timetables. When exceptions are opened widely, companies begin to design for “how to qualify for the exception.” Moves follow to redefine product specifications, sales channels, customer segments, and use cases. Some companies try to keep existing supply lines while changing classifications; others go so far as to reshuffle production, assembly, and packaging steps to meet new rules of origin. Here, cost does not end as a mere number (the tariff); it expands into a form that occupies an organization’s lead time and internal processes for a long time.

Uncertainty is no longer an accidental variable. It becomes an “insurance premium” that is continuously priced into costs and investor psychology. If inventories are increased, working capital is tied up; if logistics are rerouted, lead times lengthen; if compliance with rules of origin and regulations is strengthened, legal and compliance costs rise like fixed overhead. The bigger problem is that these costs do not explode all at once; they make companies move “cautiously” by inertia. Investment and hiring then slow, and innovation is re-sorted around not “what we want to do” but “what is permitted.”

In the end, tariffs under deal-based hegemony are not a tax meant to punish the other side, but an operating tool that narrows the other side’s options and recovers value through negotiation. The more refined the design of exceptions becomes, the less the market is shaken in a single dramatic blow—yet the longer it keeps shaking. Instead of a crash, fatigue remains, and that fatigue becomes a structure that slowly grinds down inflation, interest rates, and growth.

In the grammar of deals, alliances are closer to “settlement” than to “values.” The first question becomes: “If we provide X, what will you shoulder?” Alliances then shift from automatic response mechanisms into networks that vary the intensity of cooperation and the conditions by issue. A multi-mode posture becomes the default—cohesion in defense, bargaining in trade, and control in technology.

The tension produced by this change has two layers. The first is outward-facing tension. The less an alliance can move with a “single voice,” the more an adversary can try issue-by-issue wedge strategies using the cracks. The second is inward-facing tension. Countries within the alliance begin asking one another, “How much did you shoulder?” and the moment that question enters domestic politics, alliance cohesion is sliced into smaller units called “national interest.” The alliance still remains, but the premise that “we obviously go together” weakens.

At this point, the operation of hegemony does not so much dissolve alliances as “option-ize” them. On some issues it demands strong cohesion; on other issues it keeps the door open for deals. This option-ization is strategically flexible, but it functions as uncertainty in the market. For companies, the simple label “If it’s an alliance, it’s safe” disappears, replaced by a growing set of conditions: “In this issue, you are safe only if you meet these conditions.” As a result, an era ends in which diplomatic stability automatically translated into industrial stability, and an era begins in which changes in diplomacy and security are immediately translated into industrial risk.

When alliances become settlement systems, negotiations may move faster, but trust is consumed more quickly. When trust is consumed, the cost of the alliance rises. When costs rise, settlement pressure strengthens again. The way to break this cycle is not a declaration of values but the predictability of operations. If an alliance cannot create “rule-like deals” that make outcomes legible—what measures follow under what conditions—it will remain in place while becoming steadily more fatigued.

A tariff action on high-performance AI chips is not simply a policy that raises prices; it is an attempt to reorganize industrial rules in the language of “national security.” It targets chips that meet performance thresholds while broadening exceptions to moderate shock. If this structure repeats, corporate strategy shifts not only toward R&D competition but toward a war of classification—questions like “Which definition in the regulation do we fall under?” and “Which use case category are we placed in?”

Here, the core of tech hegemony is “path” more than “technology.” Even the same chip carries different risks depending on where it is used, which industry it enters, and which customer segment it goes to. Companies must design not only products, but also the regulatory doorway their products must pass through. And that doorway is not fixed. Depending on the political and security situation, the threshold rises or falls, and exceptions expand or shrink. Tech competition therefore becomes not just a race for “better products” but a race for products that “pass more reliably.”

This process also redraws the internal power map of organizations. Where product teams once stood at the center of the roadmap, under deal-based tech hegemony trade, legal, and supply chain teams must move at the same speed. Regulation interpretation, classification standards, import routes, and partnership structures become as important as product performance. In the end, tech hegemony pulls companies into the political arena, and companies enter an era in which they must manage even the way their technology is “read politically.”

Another change is “stratification.” High-performance, high-risk zones become stricter, while low-performance, low-risk zones are more likely to remain relatively flexible. Companies then run two strategies at once: a breakthrough at the cutting edge, and expansion across a broad exception domain. How well they operate this dual strategy becomes a competitive advantage, and at the national level this operational capacity becomes the core of industrial policy.

Supply-chain restructuring under deal-based hegemony hardens not as a “values alliance” but as an “investment contract.” Tariffs do not operate on their own; they are bundled with investment, employment, factory construction, and procurement commitments. Supply chains then begin to move not by geographic maps but by clauses in contracts. Companies do not “choose” production locations so much as they must “meet” certain conditions.

As this structure spreads, supply chains are not simply dispersed; they are reclassified in stages. Some stages are pulled into alliance blocs, while other stages are kept within the range where exceptions are allowed. Companies are more likely to choose “move only the risky parts” rather than “move everything.” For example, design and core processes may be concentrated in certain zones, while assembly, packaging, and logistics are distributed across multiple regions. This is less an optimization aimed at lowering costs than an operation aimed at splitting and managing policy risk.

At this point, coordination costs surge. Rules of origin, classification codes, exception requirements, and investment-performance checks become routine internal work. And large firms can absorb these costs better. As a result, market structure can tilt toward large enterprises, while small and mid-sized firms risk being pushed deeper into subcontracting because they cannot bear “the cost of supply-chain change.” This is why deal-based hegemony quietly reshapes competitive structure within industry.

At the same time, new opportunities emerge. If supply chains move by contracts, that also means “stable volumes” can be allocated to countries and firms that can meet the conditions. Supply-chain competition then becomes less about simply losing or keeping, and more about what conditions you put forward and what volumes you secure. Ultimately, the winners are not those with the cheapest costs, but those who can meet conditions the fastest and prove that capability consistently.

Remarks about “annexation/incorporation” surrounding Greenland may not end as mere symbolic politics. The core here is not whether one “buys the island,” but how far the impulse goes to lock in chokepoints of security, technology, resources, and sea lanes not as “access” but as “ownership.” Reports that Trump has reiterated his desire to secure Greenland show a drift toward elevating this issue from a matter of simple agreement to a matter of status itself.

The Arctic is not “the edge of the map,” but a space where “time is shortened.” As shipping routes, surveillance, communications, missile defense, and military accessibility overlap, Greenland becomes more than a symbol. In this context, an ownership frame may look like political exaggeration, yet it is read by others as a signal that can change the security landscape. Signals produce responses, and responses strengthen signals. Greenland, therefore, is more likely to harden into a form of “permanent tension” than to end with a single statement.

This is also why Denmark and Europe’s response shifts into the language of “operations.” Moves toward a more permanent NATO troop presence in Greenland are choices to bind Greenland into a multilateral frame of defense, surveillance, and infrastructure protection, offsetting the pressure of ownership. Even if it is not described as directly targeting the United States, it becomes, in effect, an operational signal that “Greenland is not an issue to be decided by anyone’s unilateral ownership logic.”

Greenland’s internal politics are also a variable. As external interest grows, autonomy and independence debates are re-sorted not as matters of principle but as matters of choice. As summarized in a UK Parliament briefing, at the point where moves toward independence intersect with a rearrangement of international relations, external pressure becomes not a one-off shock but a persistent environment. At that point, domestic opinion can easily split in two. A current that says “maximize the opportunity” competes with a current that says “reduce sovereignty risk.” That competition itself can become “negotiating power,” but it can also raise social fatigue.

First, deals may become rougher yet more precise. Tariffs can continue to repeat a pattern: “aim narrowly (choose targets),” “set exceptions broadly (moderate shock),” and “recover through negotiation (investment, factories, procurement commitments).” As tools like performance-threshold targeting in AI-chip tariffs become familiar, companies will invest resources not only in technology competition but also in competition over “classification and use cases.” In this case, the market is less likely to shake once in a spectacular eruption than to shake through incremental rule changes that accumulate fatigue over a long period. Instead of a massive shock, chronic uncertainty remains.

Second, even if Greenland does not move toward “annexation,” “tension” could become structured. As long as an American ownership frame persists, Europe and Denmark will try to offset it through multilateral defense, permanent infrastructure, and diplomatic footholds, and the density of military and diplomatic activity in the Arctic is likely to rise. If tension becomes structured, “permanent readiness” can become normalized even without an immediate outbreak of conflict. When readiness becomes routine, costs rise; when costs rise, the language of settlement strengthens again. The Arctic then becomes not a symbolic battlefield but an operational battlefield.

Third, political pressure inside Greenland could intensify. As external interest grows, autonomy and independence debates shift from questions of “identity” to questions of “survival and benefit.” The key issue becomes how sovereignty is defined while accepting some level of security cooperation and some level of economic benefit. In this process, rather than a sudden decision, a staged progression—delegation of authority and reconfiguration of international cooperation—is more likely. Yet the longer that stage takes, the more waves of external pressure will return repeatedly, and each time domestic opinion may split again.

In conclusion, hegemony is moving not toward “bigger power,” but toward “denser operations.” Even with a good strategy, without operations it ends as a declaration. With operations, it becomes daily competition. America’s deal-based hegemony is pushing the world in that direction, and each country’s battleground is shifting toward the operational capacity to endure and adjust to uncertainty.

Reuters. Trump reiterates desire for Greenland following high-stakes meeting. (Jan 15, 2026).

Reuters. Trump imposes 25% tariff on imports of some AI chips. (Jan 15, 2026).

Financial Times. Nato troops to be in Greenland on ‘more permanent’ basis. (Jan 16, 2026).

UK Parliament (House of Commons Library). Greenland: Moves to independence and new international ... (Apr 3, 2025).