Hello, and welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet.
I'm Head of Programming, Conor Boyle.
What happens if globalisation fails?
Can nations truly stand alone in an interconnected world?
And is the new race for self-sufficiency a path to real security or a dangerous illusion?
In this episode, we're joined by economics journalist Ben Chu,
author of Exile Economics, What Happens If Globalisation Fails?
to unpack the shifting tides of the global economy.
As countries retreat from cooperation and turn inward,
Ben explores what's driving this great unravelling and what it could cost us in the long term.
I spoke to Ben about the themes of exile economics and why claims to unravel globalisation may be more tricky than first appear.
Ben, thank you so much for joining us.
First question, I suppose in the last couple of weeks since Trump's so-called Liberation Day,
there's been a bit of a narrative that the age of globalization is over, free trade is behind us.
What's your take on that?
Well, I think globalization is a bit like Mark Twain said,
you know, rumors of its death have been much exaggerated.
And I think what you've seen in recent days with Donald Trump seeming to row back quite dramatically from those Liberation Day measures,
which really were putting a fortress, a tariff fortress around America,
rowing back from that because of the very clear economic disruption that that was going to cause in America in terms of the availability of goods from China and elsewhere and the impacts on the prices.