We at the Peterson Institute invite you to an important event challenging the conventional wisdom about the American relationship with globalization.

A political consensus has emerged that the United States has recklessly pursued international economic openness at the expense of workers, and the result has been populist backlash. This is incorrect—successive US administrations have increasingly attempted to insulate the American economy from foreign competition, and the result has been a failure. The United States has seen greater populist frustration while privileging workers in declining manufacturing industries and neglecting the vast majority of low-income Americans. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has generally continued to open and globalize, albeit at a slower pace in recent years. This reassessment calls for the United States to instead improve conditions for all workers by opening the economy up further to international competition and higher standards, as American governments previously urged other economies needing reform to do.

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