The World

By Alan Beattie, world trade editor

Horrendously remiss of me not to have linked to Vox’s new e-book on how trade collapsed at the end of last year and early this, but fortunately Clive was on the case.

The big question is whether protectionism is an imminent or a distant threat. You look at different definitions and come up with different conclusions: this World Bank paper suggests that trade defence instruments (anti-dumping etc) are actually only applied to a very small proportion of trade, while this monitoring outfit is much more concerned.

You takes your measure and you makes your choice. I’m tending to the sanguine on this one, unless the world economy goes into another dip and/or unemployment stays high for a long time. More evidence that views on globalisation more generally haven’t changed much came out today: the German Marshall Fund survey of attitudes to immigration on both sides of the Atlantic shows business as usual. I wonder if this is related to the fact that a lot of immigrants in both Europe and the US actually tend to toddle off home sharpish (to central Europe and Mexico respectively) when demand for casual labour turns down, and thus act like a sort of high-frequency gastarbeiter, rather than hanging about irritating hostile natives. This might all be good for the economy, but I’m not sure about its effect on civic life.

Interestingly the survey respondents seem to think that permanent worker immigration is better than temporary, and that illegal immigrants should be regularised. That’s not what you read in the tabloids.