Has the health crisis awakened protectionism?

Is protectionism making a comeback? Yes, according to Jacques Sapir, economist and director at the EHESS which publishes Protectionism with PUF editions. And this reflection, shared by many of his colleagues, finds its starting point in the emergence of Covid-19 in the world: “It is very clear that the health crisis has been the last nail in the globalization sector“, begins the author who believes that the health crisis “made us realize that we had become dependent on a whole series of strategic productions“, evoking in this respect the manufacture of masks.

In addition to economic reflexes, “the form that protectionism takes today concerns tariff measures“, explains Jacques Sapir, who mentions in particular India, China and the United States. In addition, all the countries which have applied protectionist measures have seen their growth jump. “For example, Japan, China and South Korea have based their growth on this protectionism“, without however prohibiting international exchanges, concludes the author.