The COVID-19 pandemic is broadly impacting global supply chains with enterprises being prevented from producing and shipping raw inputs, semi-finished articles and end products, and governments adopting and maintain exporting restrictions on ventilators, masks, gloves, personal protective equipment and relevant inputs. The pandemic amplifies and accelerates the decoupling of US–China economic relations, reflecting US President Trump’s maxim 'economic security is national security' and delivered by a US–China trade war with numerous trade measures, including sanctions against Huawei.The attachment to economic security reflects a reversal of economic globalisation which used to posit economic interdependence as a safeguard for national security, but there is now a theory that overdependence is a threat to national security. In this context, there is a need for fresh look at the law and politics on export restrictions and sombre thought on the restructure of the global supply chain. Three key elements will be of critical importance in the post-COVID-19 world: ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’, economic security and the decoupling of the US–China economy.