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In the leadup to 2016 one of the hottest political issues was international trade. Acronyms like NAFTA, the TPP, the WTO, the EU and so on were hot on the news and the debate didn't seem to neatly match onto traditional left/right rivalries. Instead it felt like an embattled centre was forced to weakly make the case for these agreements, or even abandon them entirely in the face of broad popular discontent. Brexit resulted in Britain crashing out of the EU's common market and a China/America trade war of mutual tariffs got started. It was an era of decoupling. Since then, the issue has largely faded into the background. Nobody's pushing these agreements as progress, but nobody's really attacking them either. There's a lot of talk of reshoring, domestic production, the EU/American trade conflict, sanctions on Russia and so forth but these seem to have broadly been presented as matters of national self determination in the wake of covid and the collapse of just-in-time supply chains. In politics, trade is simply not talked about in the same way it used to. In America the once free-trade right has become too consumed with culture war grievances to articulate any sort of economic policy at all, and the left has broadly embraced protectionism and reshoring through the Build Back Better program. The Ever Given getting its big boat butt stuck in the Suez Canal seemed to become the icon of the death of globalized trade, or at least its public debate. So to my question: Is this good or bad? Is this even important to you? What do you think, and why? Please also note your country of origin when you talk about your opinions on trade when you reply, too, I'm very curious how this affects different regions. I don't feel that politics broadly came to any sort of clear consensus on the matter, other than an internalized concept that it wasn't popular, but by and large it doesn't seem as hot a political issue as it used to. So what happened? Are there just bigger things to worry about, or does this still affect your votes and thinking?
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Apr 5, 2023 13:54
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Some dated but good reading on this subject is Ha-Joon Changs "Bad Samaritans".
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Apr 5, 2023 19:59
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There instead of being a trend towards more globalization will be a trend towards more regional and /or ideologically aligned trade partners in supply chains I do not think outside of specific industries of consequence (eg. semiconductor and Li ion / equivalent battery) that what is already globalized will recede significantly, but that as a trend it’s growth will stop and that new trade growth will be regional. This scenario could be worse. Years ago during the Obama admin there was a NIE that outlined future scenarios. We are looking at a partial stalled engines. Things are going to continue to get more expensive. But also labor will continue to gain power. And transitions needed for climate change may hit crossover points sooner in this more expensive world. The other trend that isn’t being talked about yet is US oil consumption and production several of the consultancies model our consumption to be at 25% of current by 2050 due to transition to electric vehicles. That’s going to hugely affect international politics. It’s already affecting international politics.
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Apr 7, 2023 05:29
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Thanqol posted:Since then, the issue has largely faded into the background. Nobody's pushing these agreements as progress, but nobody's really attacking them either. Their progress of making products worse, shrinking the economy, shrinking the united states abroad, etc
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Nov 10, 2023 02:39
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