New start

As WW 2 came to an end, the US was the single super power but within a year the Soviet Union annexed most of Eastern Europe as Churchill declared that an Iron Curtain had descended across Europe. This was the opening salvo of what became the 45 year long Cold War. It was a battle between communism and free market capitalism, a battle between dictatorships and democracies. In order to win countries over to the side of democracy, the US announced that they would protect the oceans so all countries could conduct free trade. If one country had iron ore but short on food, they could trade with another country that had food but short in iron ore. This opened the door to worldwide trade which became known as globalization. Over the next fifty years this was the dominant economic system and early on it benefited the West but in time it helped the East and it moved one billion people out of poverty, mostly in Asia and in particular China, India and South Korea. These countries grew rapidly using child and sometimes slave labor, having no environmental laws, no worker protection laws and coal as their source of energy. They were a century behind the West but were catching up rapidly. The Cold War ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and the European countries gained their freedom. The downside was the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the West and in the rust belt of America. Corporations made huge profits while the working people saw their good jobs disappear and replaced by low paying jobs with few benefits. This caused a wide gap in income and wealth distribution which continues today. The world is now in the process of deglobalization and manufacturing jobs are returning. While most of Europe is struggling with deindustrialization the US is in the process of reindustrialization. Countries are flocking to invest in the large consumer market of the US.