Brexit Won’t Stop Globalization

that irresistible force that was inevitably, inexorably making the world flat—looks to be in retreat. Trade growth has never recovered to the levels reached before the 2008 financial crisis. Donald Trump is fueling his presidential campaign on fear of free trade and immigration. The economic problems of the U.S., he blasted in a June speech, are “the consequence of a leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism.” Then came Brexit, the worst setback for the European Union, that most ambitious experiment in globalization. Money manager Bill Gross said Brexit marks “the end of globalization as we’ve known it.”

In a sense, Gross is correct. The rich West launched globalization on the ideal that nations tied together by bonds of trade, money, and culture are less likely to destroy one another. Now those in the U.S. and Europe who believe themselves hurt by the massive changes wrought by globalization want to reverse it. Isolationism is being heralded as independence.

But anyone who thinks globalization is dead misreads what’s really happening. While there are pockets of resistance, much of the world is still forging tighter links between countries, companies, and communities. Rather than retrenching, globalization is deepening and expanding—whether angry Trump supporters or British Leave voters like it or not. Read More…

Brexit Won’t Stop Globalization