In this economically integrated world, in which goods traverse continents in a day and ideas in an instant, globalism is here to stay. But the globalism to which the United States and Europe have signed on must be rethought. For, while worldwide trade, engagement, and collaboration have contributed to global prosperity and scientific progress, the free world has become more vulnerable to predations of hostile powers. Globalists have justified generous commercial deals and enabling strategic compromises with brutal and aggressive regimes as only befitting an enlightened world that accepts cultural and political differences. In so doing, they allowed the deterrent posture and human rights stance of America and its allies to deteriorate.
Globalism and the mindset that accompanies it contributed greatly to China’s dramatic rise and has roots in the years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. A bill that granted China permanent normal trade relations with the U.S. and paved the way for China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization was pushed through by the administration and the Senate without consideration of the hard line China had recently taken in political and military matters and without human rights or national security conditions. Supplemental legislation that would have required annual reviews of China’s missile technologies and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and would have penalized China for violating nonproliferation treaties, was rejected.
