Bloomberg: This Was the Week the World Got Really Anxious About Globalization’s Future

From Sid Verma and Julie Verhage writing at Bloomberg:

Weak global trade, fears that the U.K. is marching towards a hard Brexit, and polls indicating that the U.S. election remains a tighter call than markets are pricing in have led a bevy of analysts to redouble their warnings that a backlash over globalization is poised to roil global financial markets—with profound consequences for the real economy and investment strategies.

From the economists and politicians at the annual IMF meeting in Washington to strategists on Wall Street trying to advise clients, everyone seems to be pondering a future in which cooperation and global trade may look much different than they do now.

…

Without mentioning him by name, Lew’s comments appeared to nod to Donald Trump, who some believe could take the U.S. down a more isolationist trading path should he be elected president in November. “The emergence of Donald Trump as a political force reflects a mood of growing discontent about immigration, globalization and the distribution of wealth,” write analysts at Fathom Consulting, a London-based research firm. Their central scenario is that a Trump administration might be benign for the U.S. economy. “However, in our downside scenario, Donald Dark, global trade falls sharply and a global recession looms. In this world, isolationism wins, not just in the U.S., but globally,” they caution.

Read the rest of the story at Bloomberg.