How destructive is Trump of globalisation?

A FEW years ago, Angus Deaton, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton University economist, working with Anne Case, his wife, researched the changing patterns of life expectancy in the United States. They divided the population into several socio-economic categories. They noticed to their great surprise that one group had seen a decline in its life expectancy while all others, including the low-income blacks and Latin Americans, saw some increase.

The group that had fallen behind was identified as that of the low-income, non-college educated whites. A good proportion of these lived in what was called the "Rust Belt", where once prosperous industries provided easy employment and comfortable incomes to their workers. However, many had died …