The globalisation backlash

Washington

THE verdict of history is that the trade war that's now raging between the United States and China will lead to no good - with consequences that could go well beyond trade and threaten the world's geopolitical and economic stability.

How this plays out is anyone's guess, but we should not pretend that there is no danger in letting the conflict fester. Possible fallouts range from a gradual disintegration of the existing global trading system, to the formation of trading and economic blocs, and, at worst, to war itself.

The historical parallels are mostly sobering. During the 1990s, the widespread assumption among economists and business leade…