Fine della globalizzazione o tramonto dell’Occidente?

• Main Author: Gianfranco Battisti
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Firenze University Press 2020-01-01
• Series: Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana
• Subjects: globalization; cold war; great depression; sovereignty
• Online Access: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/bsgi/article/view/807

The raising of the tariff barriers initiated by President Trump has rightly been accepted as the ‘killing’ of globalization. Moreover, such a measure represents the official recognition that the U.S. are no longer able to withstand the rules of free trade, thus putting an end to the exceptionality of America that now becomes a country like any other. For the U.S. this is a mandatory choice, even if the price to pay will be the disruption of the system of global economic relations. In this perspective, the scene of the epochal crisis already experienced today by the E.U. and the U.S.A. invites us to reared the pages of O. Spengler. After the interventions in defense of the dollar (Bush Jr.) and the failed attempt to build a tricontinental common market (Obama), the currente American president is forced to rely on the protectionist option. A measure already implemented by the U.S., with catastrophic results for the rest of the world, after the crisis of 1929. Faced with this threat, China – the main target of current and future customs barriers – proposes on her part the One Belt One Road project, which is referred to as the globalization model of the 21st century. The U.S. thus see again the spectrum of a construction that rediscovers the Heartland, a geopolitical nightmare already pointed out by Mackinder in 1904, and whose shadow has projected on the whole 20th century.