“Since the end of the World War II, American politicians of the left and right agreed that it was in the country’s and indeed the world’s interest to promote the lowering of trade barriers,” says Kishore Jayabalan in this week’s Acton Commentary. But are American populists now presaging a turn against economic globalization?
It may not be surprising that avowed socialist Bernie Sanders is opposed to free trade, but who could have imagined that the wife of “new Democrat” President Clinton who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement would turn against economic globalization? Or that a Republican like Ted Cruz who grew up idolizing Ronald Reagan would follow suit? Only someone who foresaw the rise of the global businessman/American nationalist known as Donald Trump and the populist movements he and Sanders are currently leading.
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