even have more migrants as a percentage of the world population just creeping up to about

three plus percent of the world population are people who live outside of their country

of origin. They’re ex pats, economic migrants, whatever you want to call them. And that’s

three percent of a much larger world population than was the case in 1950, right. We’re

approaching a world of seven-and-a-half, eight billion people more than three percent of

whom are now migrants. So that’s nearly 300 million people who are living outside

their country of origin who may be temporary. They may be permanent. I believe that this

global migrant hoard if you will is always chasing the supply chain, always chasing jobs,

always chasing a better life, always chasing good cities to live in. And in fact, most

places in the world are reducing the barriers to entry for migrants. In 2015 Europe let

in one million migrants, right, particularly political refugees from the Middle East. Now

they’re talking about some limited migration controls from the Middle East and within their

own territories across European borders. This is a very limited process because European

countries are of course largely open to each other and generally very integrated. Their

supply chains, their economies are very, very interdependent. But even if Europe were to

impose very strict migration restrictions that does not tell us about the global picture.

The same year, 2015, ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is ten countries

and 700 million people which is greater than the population of Europe passed an ASEAN economic

community and ratified a treaty to allow the free mobility of labor across its countries.

So even if in one year 600 million people in Europe decided they want to limit mobility

the same year 700 million people in Asia decided they want to increase mobility. So only from

a totally Eurocentric standpoint are walls going up and migration becomes more difficult.

That’s not actually what is happening on a worldwide basis. In fact we’re going into

a period that I describe as a great demographic dilution, even a genetic dilution. There is

so much more intermingling of different ethnic populations happening around the world that

there are very few countries left that you could even define as nation states. Traditionally

we think of a nation state as a country where 85 or 90 percent of the population belongs

to the same ethnic group. The number of nation states is declining because

more and more countries are becoming more ethnically diverse. Even in Europe where the

idea of the nation state really began in the Middle Ages and into the modern nation states

of Western Europe today there you see a growing percentage of migrants and therefore those

countries are no longer even nation states. So in fact, we have this genetic intermingling

and we see this particularly in global cities that are melting pots. Places like Singapore

or Hong Kong or Dubai or Toronto or London. Places where the foreign born percentage of

the population, maybe 40 percent, 50 percent. In the case of Dubai even 85 or 90 percent

of the residents actually don’t come from that place. And so we see literally mingling

of ethnicities, mixed birth children and this mingling of populations that has never taken

place before at this rapid rate. So yes, populism is a feature of our politics. There is a backlash

against immigration to some degree in quite a few places. But the global picture is one

of more mass migration and integration across societies.

It is very important for us to not be deterministic about geography and instead to always take

into account the layer of connectivity on top of geography and the impact that has.

In other words the relationship between political geography which is our nations and boundaries

and political barriers and functional geography which are the connections that we build across

those boundaries. Do understand the relationship between any two countries you have to take

into account not just the political boundary but the infrastructural connectivity. The

obvious example is the United States and Mexico. It may be the case hypothetically that one

day if some particular person were to become president of the United States he may wish

to erect some kind of a wall on the border between the two countries which might have

the impact of reducing the inflow into America of a very small number of illegal migrants

into the country.

Does that tell you everything you need to know about U.S.-Mexico relations? Not by a

long shot. In fact U.S.-Mexico relations consist of the following. It is one of the world’s

two or three most heavily legally transited borders with hundreds of thousands of people

moving across every single day. It is one of the largest trade relationships in the

world with more than several hundred billion dollars of annual trade every single year.

It is two countries that are massively investing in each other’s economies, particularly

the United States now investing more and more in the Mexican energy supply, in the Mexican

energy sector, in the Mexican automotive sector. And of course there are still very large amounts

of demographic and ideational and communications and electronics flows that are happening between

the two countries all the time. That is U.S.-Mexico relations, not whether or not there is a wall

or not a wall on the border. So if you multiply that by every single border in the world you

start to understand that there is so much more connectivity between countries than there

is division.

And that’s just if we’re talking about countries that border each other. But only

25 percent of world trade is between countries that share a border. Seventy-five percent

of world trade is between countries that are not physically connected to each other at

all. There is obviously lots of connectivity between all of our societies. Otherwise how

would 75 percent of our world trade be taking place at all? And in fact, the value of world

trade in services, things that we zap rather than ship is now more valuable than the trade

in goods, things that we physically put in containers and ship. And so if you think about

the full almost total digital connectivity that is encompassing the world with the rapid

spread of mobile communications and the internet the more you realize that even if you can’t

physical see the connectivity it is such an intimate part of our lives and our economy.

We know that throughout history the great thriving commercial and even political centers

of the world have been open, diverse, tolerant melting pots. Ancient Greece was like this.

The Roman Empire was like this. The Ottoman Empire was a very diverse empire. The great

trading centers of European history, particularly Amsterdam were very diverse and inclusive.

London during the British Empire welcomed in people from all across the commonwealth.

And today the great global cities of the world such as New York or Los Angeles or London

or Dubai or Singapore are all very diverse cities. In an age where we pride cities on

being thriving and creative and innovative and having services as a dominant part of

their economy those sources of dynamism come from being tolerant and open to immigration.

So we find a real correlation between the great cities in the world, the desirable places

to live and their openness to immigration and talent and diversity. And I think that’s

something to celebrate.