Trump's election is not the first, but it is still a major obstacle to globalization. To understand the extent of it, it is better to take a step back and gain perspective. Globalization was born in the minds of American rulers in the late 60s.
Nixon realizes that the USA can no longer bear the burden of the Gold Exchange Standard, which bleeds Fort Knox's gold reserves, and bear the fierce competition from European products. He decides to change the rules of the game: he abandons the gold and clears China's customs.
China will become the main co-protagonist of globalization, while Europe, progressively marginalized, pretends to join. The world is flooded with dollars detached from gold; Chinese coffers are full of them. As the US transforms itself from a major creditor to the largest debtor country in history, globalization bursts forth financed by credit from the rest of the world. It generates huge profits for those who own the capital.
On the other hand, when wages don't fall, they still grow little. Inequality in the US is back to the highs of the early 900s. The middle class suffers and, in order not to reduce consumption levels, gets heavily into debt with the complacency of a financial system that invents complex instruments.
Thus the crisis of 2008 broke out. The economy was restarted with the monetary (QE) and fiscal drug (dizzying public deficits) but the suffering of the American middle class was further accentuated. His anger grows. The mixture is ready.
A tycoon who owns big businesses in declining industries (real estate and traditional media), known for macho shenanigans and not as a captain of industry, stands as a champion against evil, which obviously lies beyond national borders.
Seize the Republican Party. It offers simple recipes, it matters little that they are not practicable. Charm the rabid. The White House wins. It is likely that Trump will not build even one of the walls that he has proposed, which softens tone and objectives. But already the fact of having cleared the global distrust through customs, in one way or another, will unleash impulses between the US and abroad. Brexit will have been just a taste.
The globalization initiated by Nixon is now more than ever in danger. And, as Europe crumbles, China's rearmament portends bleak scenarios for when it will ask the Americans to repay with undevalued dollars.
