For nearly 80 years, the United States was the chief architect and foremost defender of the global rules-based, liberalized trading system. The twin aims of this bipartisan policy were to promote U.S. economic and strategic interests—and on both counts, the nation’s efforts have been successful. Increasing economic interdependence and globalization more broadly have fueled economic growth and innovation, raised a billion people out of poverty, and discouraged the kind of bloodshed that was all too common before the advent of the global trading system. Despite these successes, however, the system is facing its most serious and credible threat since the early 1930s, when beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism spread across the globe and fueled both the Great Depression and World War II.
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