Small- and medium-sized enterprises can bypass tariffs using 3D printing and additive manufacturing, sharing digital files globally at near-zero marginal cost; Dubai aims to 3D print 25% of buildings by 2030, as Saudi Arabia invests $500B in 3D buildings

April 2, 2025 (CE Noticias Financieras (Latin America)) –

Unlike tangible goods manufactured by global companies, which are subject to tariffs in international trade, small and medium-sized high-tech companies using additive manufacturing or 3D printing techniques share their digital files and the software to manufacture their products, at near-zero marginal cost, with local distributors around the world who can print those products and deliver them to consumers without paying tariffs.

And that changes everything.

On April 2 , U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will announce that the Trump Administration is issuing a reciprocal tariff "number," which they say "constitutes their tariff obligation," to several countries; it's one more step in what is shaping up to be the great geopolitical tariff war of the 21st century. But this initiative will ultimately fail because of the bold new technological revolution that is transforming the world stage and the very nature of trade and business.

While countries around the globe wage a fierce geopolitical tariff war that threatens to shatter the global economy, the world is witnessing a third and rapid industrial revolution that will change the rules of the game and render tariffs on many material goods obsolete, with notable exceptions such as agricultural products, rare earths, and products derived from wood and stone. This is additive manufacturing or 3D printing. This third industrial revolution is completely overturning two centuries of history, the "subtractive manufacturing" that characterized the industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, and replacing it in the 21st century with "additive manufacturing", thus undermining the geopolitical era.

Around the world, companies are avoiding tariffs by sending digital files of 3D printed products to suppliers, who then print and distribute the smart products to their customers, all at near-zero marginal cost. Unlike with tangible goods, the transfer of digital files with the software used in additive manufacturing is not subject to tariffs. This brings the "buyer-seller markets" of the first and second industrial revolution to the "supplier-user networks" of this new third industrial revolution and adds a new dimension to conventional port operations. In addition, the installation of smart additive manufacturing centers controlled by artificial intelligence at ports to produce 3D printed projects that are then distributed by truck and rail would save time in order to move products quickly to recipients.

The economic implications are enormous and far-reaching. In 2024, the overall logistics cost of transporting goods globally by sea, air and land was estimated at $12.8 trillion , or 11.6% of that year's GDP of $110 trillion . On the positive side, avoiding some of the sea, air and land logistics that accompany the transport of tangible goods around the world will drastically reduce trade costs and the price of selling goods and services for much of the human family on every continent. The time factor must also be taken into account. A Deloitte report found that during the covid-19 pandemic, companies using 3D printing were able to "reduce lead times by as much as 70% compared to those relying on traditional supply chains" when customizing and distributing products to customers and consumers. Also important is the fact that "rationalizing ports" and reducing the costs of sea, air and land transport logistics infrastructures, as well as related warehouses and port facilities, reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 11%.

In addition, global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions has triggered a renaturalization of the hydrosphere, with devastating spring floods, droughts, heat waves and unprecedented wildfires in summer and catastrophic hurricanes and typhoons in autumn, hampering maritime, air and land traffic worldwide and deteriorating logistics and supply chains at ever-increasing speed, with consequent obstacles to global trade and dangers for our human family.

The two industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries were based on subtractive manufacturing models. Subtractive manufacturing eliminates excess material to create the final product, which generates a huge volume of waste and a large and costly entropy in the production process. The additive manufacturing technology of the third industrial revolution creates the products layer by layer, so that the manufactured objects leave almost no waste.

For example, 3D printing a house starts with a computer program that develops a digital model of the building. The 3D printer is a robot that uses a raw material, such as clay, sand, limestone, metakaolin, adobe, cellulose, silk or recycled construction waste. With that raw material, it starts printing layers that it pours in rows arranged according to what has been designed on the computer, so that the entire structure is poured in just 24 hours.

Italian architect Mario Cucinella built with 3D printing the first house made of clay obtained exclusively from local clay soils. The printer poured the eco-sustainable structure in 200 hours and the construction generated very little waste and debris. Cucinella said the purpose was to address "the need for sustainable housing... and the global housing emergency, a problem that is going to have to be faced, especially in the context of emergencies arising, for example, from major migrations or natural disasters."

No less important is the new business transaction model that goes hand in hand with the manufacture and distribution of 3D printed products. Cucinella can change its business plan from a "seller and buyer marketplace" to a "supplier and user network" because it uploads and instantly sends, at "almost" zero marginal cost, program instructions anywhere in the world, so that local developers can print buildings in a timely manner and according to needs and pay a license fee to the supplier for each downloaded building.

Additive manufacturing on global networks of suppliers and users has many added benefits, such as eliminating overstocking and continually updating product lines. This is one of the big changes emerging as an incipient third industrial revolution makes possible a new paradigm of economic relations, shifting from globalization to glocalization.

While more and more Fortune 500 companies are starting to use 3D printing technologies - among them Airbus, Siemens , Volkswagen , Boeing , Medtronic, General Electric , Caterpillar and BASF - the manufacturing model favors small and medium-sized technology companies (SMEs) that participate in a rich web of economic exchanges across sectors and continents and avoid the high cost of sea, air and land transport, logistics and tariffs.

Additive, 3D-printed construction is spreading around the world. Dubai , for example, aims to have 25% of its buildings constructed in this way by 2030. Saudi Arabia has announced that it will devote $500 billion from the Public Investment Fund and international investors to the design and construction of 3D printed buildings.

Wind turbines, solar panels, car parts, headphones, surgical instruments, architectural models, footwear, visual effects and film costumes, instruments, art restoration, prosthetics, aerospace parts, emergency supplies, orthodontic and dental appliances and even eyeglasses: these are just some of the new product lines that are already being manufactured using 3D printing technology.

SMEs employing high additive 3D printing technologies greatly reduce the upfront research, acquisition and marketing costs associated with incubator and start-up projects, allowing them to scale up quickly around the world at near-zero marginal cost and reconfigure at any time, while avoiding tariffs. That gives them a distinct advantage over the centralized, vertically integrated multinational companies that characterized the first two industrial revolutions. In short, technology SMEs in a glocal economy are much more agile than large global corporations and can adapt more quickly to changes resulting, in particular, from climate-related disruptions, especially as they affect supply and logistics chains.

Today, in the late stages of the second industrial revolution, it is important to note that 500 highly centralized global companies account for one-third of the world's GDP, with revenues in excess of $41 trillion and a total workforce of less than 65 million, in a working population of 3.5 billion people worldwide. And while 44% of humanity today lives below the poverty line, with an average daily income of $6.85 , the ten richest people on Earth have, between them, a net worth of $1.9 trillion .

With fixed costs plummeting and marginal costs falling in product lines being 3D printed in most economic sectors, as well as the exchange of tariff-free software through networks of suppliers and users around the world, it is no wonder that high-tech SMEs are on the rise. In the European Union , SMEs already constitute 99.8% of non-financial businesses, provide 65.2% of business jobs outside the financial sector and account for 52% of total GDP. In the United States , SMEs make up 99.9% of businesses, employ almost half of the workforce and contribute 45% of GDP. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for approximately 90% of all enterprises worldwide and contribute substantially to employment and economic growth, providing more than 50% of jobs worldwide.

A skeptic might argue that as countries become increasingly aware of the dramatic shift from seller and buyer markets to supplier and user networks and the near zero marginal cost of digital file sharing in a globalized world, there will probably be attempts to plug the hole and slap tariffs on 3D printing software entering their borders, but they will not achieve much, for the simple reason that small and medium-sized businesses are everywhere, the market is everywhere and there is no going back.

While it is very worrying that geopolitics is rearing its head again in the 21st century and that there are disputes between various nations in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical environment, in reality, what we are experiencing is the end of the geopolitics that accompanied the first and second industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries. A more glocalized "bioregional governance" is now taking hold, with the emergence of 3D printing and technology SMEs in networks of suppliers and users crisscrossing the globe.

The infrastructures of the first two industrial revolutions, driven primarily by fossil fuels, were designed in such a way that they needed to be "centralized" and vertically integrated to create economies of scale; and they required large financial capital investment and major geopolitical and military commitments to ensure their uninterrupted operation. In contrast, the infrastructure of the third industrial revolution is designed to be "distributed," not centralized, expands laterally rather than vertically, and has bioregional impact.

When Tim Berners-Lee designed the World Wide Web so that anyone could share information with anyone from their site, without asking permission or paying a fee to central agents, he opened the door to creating a huge new economic opportunity.

Small and medium-sized high-tech companies sharing 3D printing software through networks and cooperatives of suppliers and users are the culmination of Berners-Lee's idea.

And that's the bottom line. Whereas the infrastructures of the first and second industrial revolutions were designed to benefit the few to the detriment of the many in a zero-sum game, the infrastructure of the third industrial revolution is designed in such a way that, if left to function as intended, it will distribute economic power much more widely and promote the democratization of economic life.

The attempt to stifle technology SMEs with tariffs will ultimately fail in an increasingly distributed and glocalized world. The revolution is here and it will not stop.

Jeremy Rifkin is a philosopher of economics and author of 23 books translated into 35 languages. He has just published Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our Home in the Universe in all major languages. He is one of the principal originators of the European Union and China's economic plans for the transition to a Third Industrial Revolution to address climate change and has been an advisor to U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer on the development of the National Infrastructure Plan. He is among the top ten most influential economic thinkers mentioned in The Huffington Post's global survey of "The World's Most Influential Voices".
Translation by María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia.