Donald Trump’s re-election as US president sent shockwaves
around the world, but his victory is just the latest episode in a
continuing saga. The old Western consensus in favor of global
ization started breaking down in the 1990s and early 2000s as
emerging markets began realizing its benefits. It accelerated with the global
financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and growing geopolitical tensions.
Now, with Trump’s goal of increasing import tariffs, the richest, most power
ful country in the world is turning against the global order it built, and it is not
alone in doing so. The world is fragmenting, slowly but surely—global trade
as a fraction of GDP has been flat since the financial crisis, and foreign direct
investment has fallen. Meanwhile, the number of trade restrictions that coun
tries have imposed annually has grown more than tenfold since 2010.
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