Remember the Trump trade wars? Actually, many of the tariffs that Donald Trump
imposed are still in place — less, I suspect, because Joe Biden thinks they
were justified than because giving Republicans an excuse to accuse his
administration of being soft on China does not seem like a good idea. But in
any case, trade issues are currently being overshadowed by everything from
inflation to the war in Ukraine.
اضافة اعلان
Under the radar, however, some of what Trump wanted
but failed to achieve — a return of manufacturing to the US, for instance — may
actually be happening under his successor. A recent Bloomberg review of CEO
business presentations finds a huge surge in buzzwords like onshoring,
reshoring, and nearshoring, all indicators of plans to produce in the US (or
possibly nearby countries) rather than in Asia.
There has also been a flurry of news reports, backed
by some flaky data, suggesting that companies really are building new
manufacturing facilities in the US and other high-income countries.
So we may be seeing early indications of a partial
retreat from globalization. This is not necessarily a good thing, but that is a
topic for another day. For now, let us talk about why this may be happening.
The first thing you need to know is that if we see
some decline in world trade in the years ahead, it will not be the first time
that has happened. It is common to assume that the world is always getting
smaller, that rising international interdependence is an ineluctable trend. But
history says otherwise.
In fact, the world economy was surprisingly
integrated on the eve of World War I. In “The Economic Consequences of the
Peace”, John Maynard Keynes wrote of the “extraordinary episode” that he
claimed ended in August 1914 — an era in which “the inhabitant of London could
order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the
whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their
early delivery upon his doorstep.”
And that first age of globalization did in fact go
into reverse after the Great War. There was a big decline in trade between the
start of World War I and the aftermath of World War II. Recovery took a long
time: As late as 1980, trade was hardly larger, relative to the world economy,
than it had been at the end of the Edwardian era.
What followed, however, was indeed an unprecedented
jump in trade, sometimes referred to as “hyperglobalization”. This was the era
described in my colleague Tom Friedman’s famous book “The World Is Flat”, first
published in 2005; many people expected surging trade to continue indefinitely.
Indeed, companies talking about reshoring production often make the point that modern techniques in some cases allow them to produce with relatively few workers, in which case the cost savings from outsourcing to low-wage countries are minimal — and are outweighed by the logistical advantages of producing close to home.
In fact, however, hyperglobalization stalled out
around 2008; international trade as a share of the world economy has been more
or less, um, flat for 14 years. And there are three reasons to believe that
globalization will actually retreat in the years ahead, though probably not to
the extent it did in the inter-war years.
The first, most benign reason is the rise of the
robots — by which I mean labor-saving technology in general. People often
assume that improvements in transportation technology necessarily mean more
trade. But that is only true if progress in transportation is faster than
progress in the technology of production. I wrote a little model about this a
few years back, but here is a reductio ad absurdum: Imagine that we all had
access to the replicators on “Star Trek” — machines that would synthesize
anything we wanted on the spot. If all we had to do was say “Tea, Earl Grey,
hot” and a steaming cup materialized, we would not need to import the stuff
from Sri Lanka.
Indeed, companies talking about reshoring production
often make the point that modern techniques in some cases allow them to produce
with relatively few workers, in which case the cost savings from outsourcing to
low-wage countries are minimal — and are outweighed by the logistical advantages
of producing close to home.
A second, less benign reason for declining
globalization is the growing realization that the world is a dangerous place.
It is especially dangerous to allow yourself to rely economically on countries
with authoritarian regimes, which may suddenly cut you off either as a power
play or simply because dictators tend to behave erratically.
Europe is now realizing that becoming dependent on
Russian natural gas was a terrible mistake. China has not engaged in economic
blackmail — not yet, anyway — but both the Russian example and the
arbitrariness of Xi Jinping’s COVID lockdowns have made businesses newly
nervous about relying on Chinese suppliers.
Incidentally, the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade — the foundational document for the modern world trading system —
explicitly gives each nation the right to take “any action which it considers
necessary for the protection of its essential security interests”. This right
has sometimes been abused — Trump, absurdly, invoked national security to
impose tariffs on Canadian aluminum — but given recent events, it is hard to
deny the case for policies like the recently enacted CHIPS and Science Act
subsidizing US production of semiconductors.
Finally, let us admit it: Now that America is
finally doing something about climate change, some of the policies it is
introducing will, in practice, be at least mildly protectionist. Notably, the
new tax credit for purchases of electric vehicles will apply only to vehicles
assembled in North America.
Why do this? Politics — politics in a good cause, I
would say, but politics nonetheless. Getting climate action was a heavy
political lift; some of us are still rubbing our eyes over the fact that it
actually happened. But to sell it, Democrats had to be able to portray it as a
program that would create jobs, which meant including Buy American clauses.
Do these clauses violate existing trade agreements?
Possibly. But let us face it: Honoring the letter of trade agreements is less
important than saving the planet. If this is what tackling carbon emissions
required, so be it.
But coming back to my original theme: It does seem likely
that we are about to see some retreat from globalization.
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