International trade: Is it a help or a hindrance?

Leading economies have been afflicted with new problems over the past year. The United States is struggling with both supply-chain blockages and a critical shortage of baby formula. The European Union faces the threat of scarce energy supplies, owing to sanctions on Russian fossil-fuel exports. And almost all countries are experiencing high inflation. Some have blamed these problems on excessive dependence on international trade, that is, globalisation. Deglobalisation, fragmentation, reshoring, friend-shoring, decoupling, and resilience have become now-familiar buzzwords. There is a widesprea…

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