Trade nationalism calls for a business response

IN 1998, world leaders from Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela to Bill Clinton and Tony Blair met to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the multilateral trading system. Now, trade agreements are being rejected by political leaders in some industrialised countries and economic nationalism is resurgent.

The public and private sectors in this region need to unite to defend the system that has underpinned its growth. In fact, the problems of the older industrialised economies have more to do with a failure to adjust to deindustrialisation.

Long-term policy failures in key sectors - education, social investment, regional policy, infrastructure - have left people in the former industrial heartla…