In the meantime, the US pushed for financial deregulation and emerged as a 500 lb gorilla in the global financial markets that left the Japanese and European in the dust. The tool of the this strategy was the residual role of the dollar as the sole currency for world trade. Out of this emerged an international financial architecture that does real damage to the real producers for the benefit of the financiers. Money, instead of a neutral agent of exchange, became a weapon of massive destruction more lethal the nuclear bombs with more blackmail power. Trade wars are fought through currencies.
Trade deficits become the bait for capital account surpluses.
Under globalization, these two technical term take on new relationships. In 1991, the GNP was turned into the GDP - a quiet change that had very large implications, as the 1990 was the decade of rapid globalization. Gross National Product attribute the earnings of a multinational firm to the country where the firm was owned and where the profits would eventually return. Gross Domestic Product, however, attributes the profits to the country where factories or mines or financial institutions are located, even though they do not stay there permanently. This accounting shift has turned many struggling nations into statistical boomtowns, while aiding the push for a global economy.