The U.S. Is Playing Catch-Up With Rivals as Globalization Marches On

Among those who favor free trade and footloose capital, the lament often heard these days is that we are confronting the end of an era of ever-greater economic integration. Yet the most surprising lesson of 2018 may be how resilient globalization has proved to be, even in the face of Donald Trump’s “America First” policies. Will that hold true in 2019?

The first point to remember is that globalization is more of an enduring force than an easily discarded ideology. It’s a phenomenon that’s been with us for millennia. The spread of Christianity is as much a product of globalization as the iPhone or China’s industrial might. None would exist without the human instinct to trade and travel, or to seek out a bargain.