Globalisation and autocracy are locked together. For how much longer?

THE WORLD’S supply chains have taken a knock yet again. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provoked the biggest commodity shock since 1973, and one of the worst disruptions to wheat supplies in a century. Countries from Hungary to Indonesia are banning food exports to ensure supply at home. The West has issued sanctions against Russia, depriving it of all sorts of parts and technologies.

The strain on globalisation comes on top of the effects of the financial crisis of 2007-09, Brexit, President Donald Trump and the pandemic. For years measures of global integration have gone south. Between 2008 and 2019 world trade, relative to global GDP, fell by about five percentage points. Tariffs and other barriers to trade are piling up. Global flows of long-term investment fell by half between 2016 and 2019. Immigration is lower too, and not just because of border closures.