Read the following article and answer the questions that follow:

Is it time to declare the end of globalisation?
Globalisation is coming undone. Once thought unstoppable, the forces of liberalisation that spurred many decades of rising cross-border trade are faltering. And while President Donald Trump’s policies are hardly helping, this malaise of interconnectedness appears more profound than any mere trade war.

Flows of overseas direct investment have fallen to levels not seen since the 2008 global financial crisis. Trade restrictions are rising. Genuine multinational companies — meaning those that earn at least a quarter of their revenue abroad — are less numerous and profitable than before. Rather than a free-spirited zone for unfettered communication, the internet is growing Balkanised, brought to heel by autocrats. Even those who once pushed globalisation as a force for prosperity admit that things have gone badly awry. Two new books try to make sense of what has gone wrong, examining the benefits that global integration was supposed to bring and the many social and political tensions it created instead.

The Levelling by Michael O’Sullivan, a veteran banker at Credit Suisse, offers stark conclusions. “Globalisation, at least in the form that people have come to enjoy it, is defunct,” he writes. “It may well be better that those who have grown fond of globalisation get over it [and] accept its passing.” The causes of this collapse are familiar. Outsourcing hastened the decline of western manufacturing employment, and thus many of the communities that relied upon it. Movement of people across borders, both legally and illegally, spurred a populist cultural backlash, fuelled in turn by rising inequality. The second book, The Crisis of Globalization, brings together essays by thinkers on the political centre-left, edited by Patrick Diamond, a one-time adviser to Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, in exactly the period when many centrist politicians viewed globalisation as both positive and non-negotiable. Although this is not exactly a mea culpa, Diamond now firmly rejects this view. “Global capitalism no longer appears capable of generating broadly shared prosperity,” he writes. “Clinton and Blair’s refusal to confront the polarising forces ofunfettered global capitalism is one of many reasons for the contemporary obsolescence of the progressive tradition.” Global capitalism no longer appears capable of generating broadly shared prosperity

Both books are carefully argued, although neither spends much time talking about emerging markets, where globalisation’s record is arguably more successful, for instance in creating the economic conditions that allowed countries in emerging Asia to move hundreds of millions out of poverty.

It is also possible to claim that globalisation’s reversal is in part a trick of the light. The kind of growth in physical goods that marked recent waves of globalisation is indeed slowing. But cross-border activity in other areas, for instance in knowledge services or flows of data, continues to expand, suggesting that new forms of cross-border integration can develop even as the traditional ones decline.

It may well be better that those who have grown fond of globalisation get over it [and] accept its passing Can anything be done to save some of globalization’s good qualities? Leaders such as Blair once hoped investments in education and training might help people adapt to rapid economic change. More recently others have suggested measures to compensate globalization’s “losers”. Neither approach has proved remotely effective or popular, which is why Diamond’s collection instead advocates what he calls a push for better “universal basic services” — meaning a much more generous menu of social support programs, from healthcare and housing to transport and digital access, which might help people facing economic dislocation feel more secure.

(Source: Adapted from: https://www.ft.com/content/70bc7566-9bf2-11e9-9c06- a4640c9feebb) 

Questions: 1.1. Explain what is meant by the following: “Trade restrictions are rising.”