Greg Ip’s “We Are Not The World” successfully establishes the issues that are faced by the world today in this great political divide between Nationalists and Globalists. It can be determined that the global economy and national politics are not in sync, creating a great imbalance in the world. Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election was successful because he managed to convince America that Nationalism would be the best option to increase economic prosperity. As stated by Trump, “There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship…” (Ip, 2017) which made sense to many voters, and although that may be the case today, tomorrow it may not be.
Furthermore, many nominees in the EU have adopted these same campaigning methods but are now rethinking their approach. The United States has served as proof to other countries that it is unwise to be stuck on deep-rooted and cultural beliefs in a globalized world, especially with Trumps failed attempt at building a wall to keep immigrants out. This instead weakened ties with neighbor and allied countries, uprooting the other side of the spectrum: globalism and globalization. Although globalization seems like something that is new, it stems from globalism, which has prehistoric origins. Globalism examples include the Silk Road and Spice Route among other ancient trade ways, which affected a small area and group of people. However, this helped to shape the world we live in today, especially since now there are global organizations that impact everyone; this is globalization, the rate of growth of globalism. In addition, the world has now seen a great divide between Nationalism and Globalization, not only illustrated with Trump’s recent presidential victory, but nominees and elections abroad as well. This divide demonstrates issues with immigration, unemployment, and economic as well as noneconomic issues.
Globalization took off after World War II when countries realized that this would result in a greater benefit from the trade of goods, as this had always been a known benefit, as well as diminishing the chance of another world war. Additionally, it reached its peak in the 2000’s and during this time, after long debate, China was added as a member of the World Trade Organization. This began a new era of globalization, but it had a huge backlash. China manipulated this organization to its benefit by discriminating against foreign and U.S. based companies, wiping out millions of jobs, since they saw everyone as an open market and their products were extremely cheap. They were tyrannical at home and aggressive abroad, which underlines their success, but is leading the world to economic reform (Ip, 2017). However, the fact that China has impacted the economy, is surprisingly not the only issue that has Nationalists discontent, noneconomic issues add depth to this great divide as well.
The United States of America has similar goals as the members of the European Union, such as economic prosperity and the preservation of culture. Or at least this was the case when the world saw the success of Donald Trump’s campaign. The European Union had outstanding debt, and countries wanted to secede from it, creating national borders, and caring for themselves as independent nations as demonstrated by the Drexit, Frexit, Nexit and Öxit ballots (Meichtry, Troianovsky, & Walker, 2017). Nations began to see an increased distribution in the politics spectrum, some being far left wing and others being far right wing. However, Trump was still under the microscope of these countries, and the basis of his presidential success was primarily based on abolishing immigration, which would preserve American principles and also revitalize the manufacturing industry to bring more jobs home to the American people. He made manufacturing the basis for prosperity, however, this was not the answer to the unemployment concern. In fact, manufacturing jobs have been shrinking at a very steady rate due to advances in technology and the emergence of robotics. Additionally, building a wall was easier said than done, and ending immigration would not be the end of their problems. His failures in the U.S. led to a drop in left wing support in the EU. People began to realize the effects of globalization. Later, the EU’s debt began to decrease, and staying as part of the union seemed to show more promise, yet again supporting the inevitable movement of globalization. However, globalists can see that the discontent of the people is stemming from non economic factors, such as national identity, mistrust in global institutions, immigration, terrorism, abortion and gay rights.
Seeing the entire course and current stance of the world from an unbiased perspective, the great divide becomes clearer. Politicians are not addressing the right problems, and are making multiple claims that have been disproven to win elections. Examples of this include the idea that imports make the nation poorer, success of foreign firms always helps foreign companies, and that to export, firms must sell to foreign countries (Gaur & Mudambi, 2016). In addition, human nature has a way of coping with emerging problems by going back in history. A great example of this is the president’s slogan “Make America Great Again”, as if it is not great to begin with that it must go back to a place in time when it was. Nevertheless, this is the wrong approach to the new and modernized way of life since everything keeps moving forward, now is the time to address issues for the future, and the future points to an interconnected globalized world. The left and right side of the politics spectrum will eventually no longer be relative because it will no longer work, there must be new political representations in place. With the emergence of the internet, people are now aware that world problems are everyone’s problems, a very recognizable example is global warming. Individuals are interconnected through technology that sees no borders and by solely focusing on National interests, there will be many setbacks for the Nations who still employ Nationalistic beliefs. Global regulations must be put in place because technology will be the ultimate robber of jobs, not immigrants, all while taking into account the personal motives, concerns, and principles of the individual people (Harari, 2017).