In this issue we make the point, again, that international trade and globalization issues are primarily about politics not about economics

• Despite its relative economic insignificance, the politics may make agreement on fishing rights a significant stumbling block to a UK-EU deal

• Not that the fish care who it is destroying their populations and habitats. Men are equal before fish – as President Herbert Hoover put it

• 66% of wealth managers believe that financial markets are now driven more by geopolitics than by economic fundamentals

• The US-China Phase I trade deal has been signed. Most commentators see marginal economic significance but it provides a convenient political sticking plaster for both sides

• Progressive decoupling of the US and Chinese economies remains on the cards

• China will start respecting intellectual property rights when it’s in its own self interest to do so. That may no longer be too far away. But questions remain.

• Europe is talking about data sovereignty. Industry sees it as unwelcome data fragmentation

• France, defending its national identity, has required Netflix to spend 25% of its French revenues on producing Gallic content

• A reminder: it would be a mistake with potentially tragic consequences if globalists were to continue to ignore the importance of national identity

• Coronavirus. Viruses are true globalists – they know no borders, they do not discriminate by race, religion, gender or anything else. They comfortably infect citizens of everywhere.

• An infection that has all the hallmarks of potentially unlimited globalization putting the human form of globalization into reverse. Ironic

• One is forced to ask whether global interdependence has reached a stage where the economic system is now less resilient to such unpredictable events