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US President Donald Trump is doing everything possible to limit global economic openness. Photo: Brendan Smialowski (AFP)

Too much economic openness was rightly considered a risk to the social and political context: promoting inequality, limiting political self-determination and threatening diversity cultural.

Since Donald Trumps At first glance, critics and warners should be happy with the election as President of the United States. Criticism of globalization is not only shared by the most powerful man in the world, it is also doing everything it can to limit global economic openness. Why is not this a reason to encourage these critics?

The economic critique of hyperglobalization, as the economist Daniel Rodrik calls it, does not focus on free trade per se. Rather, it was to limit globalization to the exchange of goods and services. On the other hand, criticism includes, inter alia, the opening of international capital flows with their sometimes disastrous consequences, or that trade rules give special rights to global corporations, or that too little is done to losers in free trade, which are still mandatory

. Economies are gone

The benefits of free trade itself remain unchallenged. Thanks to it, countries can first focus on their respective skills in the supply of goods and services, then it is interesting to create complex products at an affordable price, because the sales market is much more great. Third, free trade allows global value chains where the production of complete end-product components such as vehicles can take place according to the benefits of various locations around the world.

Free trade also ensures that innovations are spreading around the world, forcing companies to improve everywhere. The result of a trade war, as President Trump now does, is that existing trade relations and value chains are threatening to be severely disrupted. This does not lead to better globalization, but to lower investment and higher costs – both of which threaten to slow down the global economic engine – which primarily affects particularly open economies such as those in Switzerland.