I'm not sure globalization is very effective for economic growth when we're unable to enforce consistent rule-sets. If that growth is just regulatory arbitrage,

I'm not sure globalization is very effective for economic growth when we're unable to enforce consistent rule-sets. If that growth is just regulatory arbitrage, we're only exchanging capital for fragile optimizations instead of production efficiency. Things seemed to be working pretty well when countries made good-faith efforts to not undermine the rules for local maximization. New actors have since entered the system who don't seem to mind playing the game exploitatatively even if it destabilizes the long-term equilibrium. Ironically, these players are often described as having "multi-generational thinking" but I won't name names. To normalize the playing field, investments are needed to fund port-of-entry enforcement, quality control, and authenticity, among other things. Tariffs are the most sensible tax to fund these kinds of expenditures, which brings us back to square one. In fact, I think tariffs are probably a good quantitative measure of how egregiously another country violates it's trading partner's standards at the margins.