Friedman: Trump, Brexiteers ‘Playing With Big Systems That Have Stabilized the World Since WWII’

Wednesday on MSNBC, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman decried what he deemed to be economic nationalism coming from President Donald Trump.

Friedman championed globalist institutions like the European Union and other trade deals for preventing war. He cited World Wars I and II as having been triggered by “economic nationalism.”

“[P]eople forget where the European Union came from,” he said. “It was not just a trading bloc, that wasn’t the original intention. It was created out of World War I and World War II — two wars triggered in part by rampant economic nationalism. Where have I heard that term lately? They had been fighting each other for many centuries and what the European Union did was bring them into an economic pact that has not only made Europe more secure and more stable, but incredibly more prosperous.”

“What’s disturbing about Trump and the Brexiteers is they are playing with big systems — big systems that have stabilized the world since World War II,” Friedman continued. “We’ve forgotten, we’ve taken that so for granted NAFTA, the EU, things like TPP. These are big systems that create a more rules-based world. And also we forget how many millions of people they have taken out of poverty. Do these systems need fixing? They do. They need modernizing. But this attitude of chuck it, don’t fix it — is really really dangerous.”

(h/t RCP Video)

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