Even though written before the November 2024 US elections, this book, which outlines the end of the most recent period of globalisation, couldn’t have appeared at a better time. After all, the remarkable comeback of Donald Trump is putting as the next US President someone who for many epitomizes the protectionist view of the world through his Make America Great Again slogan (MEGA).

But of course, as Elizabeth Brew has outlined in this very comprehensive account of how globalisation worked – or didn’t, much of this informed from discussions with participants in international trade across the world, the pushback had begun even before Trump’s  first Presidency in 2017-20. After the honeymoon enjoyed after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, It had become clear that this new order couldn’t survive for long. The financial crisis of 2008/9 had already demonstrated that financial integration, though bringing benefits overall in terms of lower transaction costs , also had its downsides as interdependencies meant that crises spread quickly across the world with serious consequences . And the mood of the people was souring.

Revelations about the rich and famous, including a large number of politicians, hiding money away in offshore finance centres as was revealed in the ‘Panama Papers’ in 2016 demonstrated the unfair distribution of the gains from trade and globalisation.  Covid later exacerbated security concerns over global supply chains and encouraged a rethink of the merits of so much offshoring and just -in- time production. It was true of course, as Brew outlines, that the emergence of China as a major economic and trade power had kept goods prices and inflation at much lower levels across the globe than they would otherwise have been. But this had resulted in a lot of displacement of workers in the West. It has also led to concerns, as Braw argues, about an increasingly authoritarian China’s products dominating global supply chains, exacerbated by China’s strength in many materials needed for the energy transition. Constraints on investment flows have been introduced to limit knowledge transfers to China and, also, on Chinese buying of Western companies, and extra tariffs introduced to counter perceived unfair competition from state subsidised Chinese manufactured goods sold to the West.

And then came Russia’s territorial aggression under Putin, particularly its annexing of Crimea in 2014, later followed by the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. All this has put an end to the hopes of a non- polarised world. Increasing levels of sanctions against Russia have included freezing of oligarchs assets and central bank reserves held in western banks, excluding Russia from the West’s SWIFT payments system, and restrictions on the West’s trade with the country. While Russia continues to export and import through back routes, it has sought new alliances. The emergence of the BRICS, including of course India and China, as a countervailing trading and political power base, is attracting more potential members by the minute, such as Turkey, and looking to possibly develop an alternative trading payment system for the block. 

So what comes next? According to Elisabeth Braw the fracturing in the world trade and political order that we have witnessed is crying out for a remake. In her view there will still be much cross-border trade taking place. But this time the path ahead it will need to take into account citizens’ views which reflect worries about issues such as the job losses suffered in various parts of the world as a result of globalisation, and the need for a demonstration of working towards achieving an even playing field in the new world trade order.  Trump’s victory epitomizes a lot of those citizens’ feelings. And we have all been warned of what can happen if those feelings are ignored.