{"id":5593,"date":"2026-08-19T21:13:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5593"},"modified":"2026-08-19T21:13:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T21:13:31","slug":"geopolitical-risk-needs-to-move-away-from-the-after-dinner-speaker-eurasia-group-and-rio-tintos-dominic-barton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5593","title":{"rendered":"Geopolitical risk needs to move away from the \u2018after-dinner speaker\u2019: Eurasia Group and Rio Tinto\u2019s Dominic Barton"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in a world where all the assumptions about international institutions, free trade, a rules-based order\u2014that\u2019s all going away,\u201d said Dominic Barton, strategic counselor to Eurasia Group and chair of Australian mining giant Rio Tinto.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5591\">Trump threatens to bomb Oman, widening the war that crippled the global economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Barton spoke with <em>Fortune <\/em>days after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods including autos, dairy, and alcohol. The president had also threatened tariffs in response to wildfire smoke drifting across the border. \u201cFifteen years ago, there would have probably been diplomats bringing this forward,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it\u2019s just tweeted.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>(Just to show how changeable things are, on Aug. 19 Trump announced\u2014on social media\u2014that he will delay the new Canada tariffs by three days as the two countries near a deal).<\/p>\n<p>Barton is a veteran McKinsey leader turned Canadian diplomat turned Rio Tinto chairman; that experience gives him a well-informed perspective on how executives need to think about geopolitical scenarios. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more risk, but there\u2019s also a lot more upside,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can whine about it\u2014\u2019I hope it\u2019ll go back to the way it was.\u2019 I just don\u2019t think it will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barton argued that many companies still treat geopolitical risk as something on the side, rather than a core part of the business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have to move away from the after-dinner speaker. You\u2019d get a former politician or someone at a board to give a talk at dinner and say, \u2018let me tell you about my experience,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of over.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Barton spent decades at McKinsey, eventually leading its Asia business as the firm expanded across China and the region. He then moved into government when then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed him ambassador to China in 2019\u2014a posting that put him at the center of the \u201cTwo Michaels\u201d crisis, in which Beijing detained two Canadian citizens on espionage allegations widely seen as retaliation for Canada\u2019s arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou at Washington\u2019s request. <\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5589\">A SpaceX rocket carved out a crater on the moon as long as a bowling lane with \u2018butterfly wing\u2019 streaks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>China released the \u201cTwo Michaels\u201d\u2014Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor\u2014in 2021, after the U.S. agreed to defer prosecution of Meng.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cCEOs are going to have to spend more time with governments, and in government relations, than they ever have before,\u201d he said. He pointed to Temasek chief executive Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, former Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Tesla\u2019s Elon Musk as leaders who have built that muscle\u2014spending real time trying to understand how foreign governments think.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>More broadly, Barton argued that geopolitics needs to be deeply embedded in how companies think through their operations. \u201cWhat\u2019s your balance sheet look like? How much debt do you want to have? Are you able to withstand periods when you may have problems with customers, or with supply chain security? Where is your data going to be managed? Where do you incorporate yourself? You can\u2019t just do it anywhere anymore,\u201d Barton said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In addition to his work with Eurasia Group, Barton also chairs Rio Tinto. Mining has always been a politically fraught business, as governments often claim ownership of natural resources. Miners, for their part, need to balance earning profits with minizing political blowbakc. <\/p>\n<p>Barton declined to discuss Rio Tinto in significant detail, citing the company\u2019s July 29 earnings release. Rio Tinto has since reported a 43% jump in underlying earnings over the first half of the year, citing higher copper and aluminum prices amid growing demand tied to data centers.<\/p>\n<p>He did, however, discuss one way Rio Tinto\u2019s operations are now changing in response to one global change: The rise of China as a technological powerhouse. \u201cChina\u2019s a competitor, but it\u2019s also a humongous source of IP now,\u201d Barton said. \u201cFor Rio Tinto, the amount of purchasing we\u2019re doing from China has gone up significantly. It\u2019s more expensive than some of the traditional Western suppliers. But it\u2019s better. It lasts longer. It doesn\u2019t break down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5587\">UAE halts all trade with Iran after new missile fire in Gulf, cutting off a key export route for Tehran<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eurasia Group counselor Dominic Barton says corporate leaders can no longer treat geopolitics as a boardroom sideshow amid tariffs and new restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[513],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-geopolitics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Geopolitical risk needs to move away from the \u2018after-dinner speaker\u2019: Eurasia Group and Rio Tinto\u2019s Dominic Barton - 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