Goodbye Globalization

The US president-elect plans to increase jobs by ending trade that does not benefit the United States. That assumes the US is self-sufficient and that other countries might go along. Instead, the other countries, especially China as the world’s largest market and soon to be largest economy, will retaliate while possibly continuing trade with one another. Meanwhile, US prices will soar and quality suffer. “The era of globalization was born in the aftermath of World War II, when the United States made the decision that open trade and security guarantees with Japan and NATO would be the only way to avoid another war and counterbalance Soviet expansion,” explains Matt Phillips for Vice News. China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 had consequences for the developing world along with rising inequality and automation. A first and easy step is killing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but China will step into the void. Introducing barriers to established trade will take time and draw immediate response from other countries and US firms for which overseas sales generate the bulk of revenues. That includes ExxonMobil, General Electric, Apple and Boeing. – YaleGlobal