Word: xenophobia
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...there was one thing I thought safe under Bush, it was free trade. In the New Hampshire primary, all the Democrats (with the notable exception of Paul E. Tsongas) and Republican challenger Patrick J. Buchanan were cultivating anti-Japanese and anti-German xenophobia. They promised trade barriers to "protect" American citizens from the foreign invasion of (better? cheaper?) goods...
While much of this argument works, it has two flaws--one in the reasoning and one in the solution. The first is that parts of the argument require near-xenophobia to work. In a capital market that stretches beyond borders, private investment is easily accessible, even if some of it has to come from foreigners. Even if Perot and the deficitistas are correct in saying that the debt totally crowds out Americans' private savings (and they aren't), the U.S. could (and does) attract foreigners' investment dollars instead...
...that both drive on the left and are rainy islands studded with green villages. They go even beyond the fact that both have an astringent sense of % hierarchy, subscribe to a code of stoical reticence and are, in some respects, proud, isolated monarchies with more than a touch of xenophobia. The very qualities that seem so foreign to many Americans -- the fact that people do not invariably mean what they say, that uncertain distances separate politeness from true feelings, and that everything is couched in a kind of code in which nuances are everything -- will hardly seem strange...
...even today the link between Australia and its Asian neighbors is tenuous. Canberra discarded its whites-only immigration policy in 1976, but decades of Australian xenophobia linger in Asian memories. On Hong Kong and Malaysian television, Australia is often portrayed as a racist country. Australians, on the other hand, are still prey to what Governor-General Bill Hayden, the Queen's representative in the federal government, recently called "Orientalist fantasies," timeworn images of exotic, erotic and despotic Asians. Even after the cultural and economic transformations of the past decade, Australia differs radically from its neighbors in language, law, religion, concepts...
...nation-state is also exploding upward, into larger units, notably the European Community. It has not eradicated national rivalries, or xenophobia, or protectionism, or the danger of international trade wars. But the historic fact is that Western Europe has learned the momentous lesson: that war and conquest no longer lead to economic prosperity. Bending sovereignty, states are increasingly joining to cope with such common problems as the environment, communications, nuclear proliferation and a whole range of issues that used to be "internal affairs" -- including human rights...