Is the world giving up on globalization? Well, the CPTPP partners aren’t.

A good night’s sleep doesn’t come easily for Canadian exporters these days. Export sales aren’t the issue; they are booming, thanks to the red-hot US economy. The big worry is that it’ll all come to a grinding halt. The threat of protectionism has zoomed up their insomnia list; they are keenly concerned about radical changes to the international trade superstructure, and how to prepare themselves. Are their fears founded?

Great question. Global support for the anti-trade movement intensified in the suddenness of the Great Recession, and the inability of the world economy to rack up respectable growth for the past seven years. Millions were unable to find meaningful work, or any work at all, sparkling a negative reaction toward government, corporations, post-war institutions and the ‘1-per-cent’. It’s a delicate dance: just as frustration is fomenting, the disaffected are returning to the job market in droves. Activism could lead to an undermining of the very architecture that at long last is serving up the very thing activists have been asking for.

Thankfully, to date anti-trade political bombast is just that. Last year’s volley of European elections all tilted toward traditional structures. The US keeps threatening to back away from trade agreements, most notably NAFTA, but in this case, it keeps coming back to the table with a modernization message....

This was excerpted from an 8 March 2018 commentary by Peter Hall of EDC.