Currency wars may be all the rage but they are merely a symptom of a much more deep-rooted problem. We are witnessing the return of economic nationalism. At the 2009 London Group of 20 summit, it seemed for a fleeting moment that nations had learnt how to work together to solve the world’s economic and financial problems. That dream no longer holds. Persistent economic stagnation has left our political leaders increasingly looking for national solutions to what have become deeply-entrenched international problems.

Their approach is hardly surprising. Politicians are accountable more to their own electorates – and their local media – than to anyone else. In the good old days, when globalisation appeared to deliver rising living standards for all, there was no conflict: our leaders could simultaneously support the architecture of globalisation while taking the plaudits for prosperity at home. That’s all changed. While globalisation has most certainly dragged millions of Chinese and Indians out of poverty and turned rich westerners into the super-rich, that is scant consolation for those millions of western citizens heavily in debt and without a pay rise for many years.

It is not so much that nations are becoming deliberately more protectionist. Rather, the cheerleaders for globalisation have gone into hiding. They can no longer so easily claim that the forces of internationalisation have brought benefits to all. Without those cheerleaders, however, the temptation to pursue economic nationalism becomes ever greater.