Does the free market hold up in bad weather?

Yesterday, as we were vocally flinging our, um, ideas at each other in class, I brought up the idea of dual dependency. It's something that no one likes to think about: the idea that we are now, and will continue increasingly to be, as dependent on third world countries as they are on us.

Trade has been a staple of human civilization for literally centuries. I see nothing wrong with trade. It is the way that we have figured out to get goods to where they need to be. I was reading this article the other day, about Failaka Island, in the Red Sea, now controlled by Kuwait, that was conquered and colonized by Alexander the Great in the 4th century. Looked at another way, Alexander and conquerors of his ilk were the first multinational corporations- bodies of traders and fighters out to expand their territory. The major difference now is that wars are fought purportedly for ideology (I don't believe it for a second but that is how it is portrayed) and slaves are not captured, they are advertised to and placed in voluntarily-assumed debt. (Oh, and Alexander was 33 when he died. So if I wanted to take over the world, I'm already a year behind him!)

I work in a large local laboratory that I don't really think I need to name, because it's the only one. When Hurricane Katrina hit, there were supplies that we could not get because the suppliers were Louisiana-based. After a week there were tests that we couldn't run. That means that someone's grandfather or aunt or cousin was waiting anxiously for a diagnosis that couldn't be made.

Expand that a thousandfold, just as a thought experiment, and think about what it would be like if we couldn't import anything because it isn't being produced. One example: the Indian state of Assam is or has been largely under water for the past week or two, as one of the worst monsoon seasons in recent history hit. Now imagine you are a tea dealer in the US. Suddenly you have no product to import because the rain flooded out your sources and the growers are struggling to survive. If it isn't being produced it can't be traded. This will become a growing concern as global warming really kicks in. The biggest irony is perhaps that the very mechanisms that allow us to trade, vehicular traffic and shipping routes, are major contributors to this process.