The End of Globalisation?

Donald Trump once managed to go bankrupt running a casino, but we live in hope, as Paul Knaggs writes:

Globalisation has enabled corporate profit on an unprecedented scale. For decades, multinational corporations outsourced production to countries where labour was cheap—often exploitative, sometimes forced. Back home, these companies reaped enormous markups, while workers in the West were told to accept their redundancy as part of ‘progress.’ It became more profitable to import than to manufacture, and as a result, nations like Britain were reduced to service-based economies with fragile industrial backbones.

This model has always favoured the few over the many. But now, it is collapsing under its own contradictions.

Donald Trump’s imposition of sweeping global tariffs—25% on EU goods, 10% on UK imports, and a staggering 35% on Chinese products now reciprocated—may prove to be an unexpected catalyst for a new economic awakening. Trump is calling it “Liberation Day” for American workers, and while his rhetoric is laced with nationalism, the underlying logic cannot be dismissed so easily: nations must begin making the things they use.

In many ways, this is a long-overdue reckoning. Western economies have for too long depended on a supply chain powered by sweatshops and environmentally destructive practices in the Global South. Goods may have arrived cheaply, but the true cost was outsourced—in lost jobs, collapsed communities, and mounting inequality. The illusion that we could sustain vibrant consumer societies without productive economies is now crumbling.

Market Panic: The Sound of Profit Models Collapsing

The immediate aftermath of Trump’s tariff announcement has been predictable—global markets are in freefall. Wall Street closed to a sea of red on Friday, following Thursday’s rout that marked the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic. All three major US indexes plummeted by more than 5%, with the Nasdaq officially entering bear market territory, down 22% from its December peak.

The UK’s FTSE 100 suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing down 4.95%—a level not seen since March 2020. Asian markets followed suit, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropping 2.75%, now down 20% from its recent peak.

But this isn’t merely a market correction—it’s a fundamental repricing of an economic model built on exploitative global supply chains. The panic selling reflects the sudden recognition that the era of outsourced production and inflated margins is ending. Trump’s unapologetic response on Truth Social—”only the weak will fail”—may be callous, but it captures a brutal truth: businesses that cannot adapt to a world of local production and fair labor costs will not survive.

For decades, shareholders have reaped the rewards of globalisation while workers bore the costs. Now that equation is being forcibly rebalanced, and the market’s reaction reflects the terror of those who profited most from the old order. What investors see as catastrophe, unemployed factory workers in post-industrial towns might view as long-overdue justice.

From Sweatshops to Sovereignty: The Unintended Consequences of Trump’s Tariffs

What comes next could be nothing short of revolutionary. If imported goods become too expensive, nations will have no choice but to develop comprehensive industrial strategies. This isn’t simply about bringing factories back; it’s about reimagining how we produce value in a world reshaped by energy crises, automation, and climate breakdown.

What comes next could be nothing short of revolutionary. If imported goods become too expensive, nations will have no choice but to develop comprehensive industrial strategies. This isn’t simply about bringing factories back; it’s about reimagining how we produce value in a world reshaped by energy crises, automation, and climate breakdown.

A modern industrial strategy must be built on four pillars: energy security, robotics, AI, and skilled manual labour. Green energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and digital technologies must work in tandem with a renewed respect for tradespeople and domestic production. People need work, not just to earn, but to participate in the economy meaningfully. We cannot buy what we do not produce.

This moment is a crossroads. We either continue down the path of corporate globalism—a path that hollows out our democracies and deepens inequality—or we take a new course that prioritises national resilience, fair wages, and democratic ownership of resources. The consequences of this choice were foreseen by political thinkers across decades, from Jack London’s prescient fiction to Michael Parenti’s clear-eyed analysis of imperial capitalism.

“The struggle between labour and capital cannot be reconciled,” London warned through his revolutionary protagonist Ernest Everhard in The Iron Heel. “It is the natural law of capitalist development that profits concentrate while workers compete against each other in a race to the bottom.” Written over a century ago, London’s dystopian vision of oligarchic rule through international commerce now reads less like fiction and more like historical documentation.

Parenti’s critique cuts even deeper: “The essence of capitalism is to turn nature into commodities and commodities into capital. The live green earth is transformed into dead gold bricks, with luxury items for the few and toxic slag heaps for the many. The glittering mansion overlooks a vast sprawl of shanty towns, wherein a desperate, demoralised humanity is kept in line with drugs, television, and armed force.”

This is the ultimate endpoint of unfettered globalisation—a world where capital moves freely while human beings remain trapped in increasingly desperate circumstances. Trump’s tariffs, whatever their intent, have inadvertently shattered this trajectory. The question is what will replace it.

Nations now face a stark choice: continue clinging to the fading paradigm of borderless capital, or embrace a new model of economic sovereignty that prioritises domestic resilience and fair distribution. The former path leads to increasing instability as the contradictions of globalisation intensify; the latter offers the possibility of rebuilding shattered industrial communities and restoring meaningful work.

Globalisation, as we have known it, is dying. But its death need not mean collapse. It could mark a rebirth—a fourth industrial revolution that doesn’t merely advance technology but fundamentally reorganises who benefits from production. The question is whether our political class is brave enough to seize this moment—or whether they will let it pass while clinging to the wreckage of neoliberalism.

Either way, the age of cheap goods, silent factories, and outsourced responsibility is over. What comes next will define the century.