NEW JERSEY’s governor, Jon Corzine, used to be chief executive of Goldman Sachs in a previous life.

International deals were the richly buttered bread of his daily life. Two years ago he was taking much of the credit for globalisation: “I lived in a part of history when we went from having a US financial market that was very isolated and internally focused to truly globalised and integrated.”

But it was a very different Corzine who spoke out last month when Dubai Ports was trying to take over P&O’s American port operations. The governor was at the front of the barricades trying to stop the deal.

“Turning port operations over to a company owned by a country that recognised the Taliban as a legitimate government goes beyond the realm of common sense,” he said of a country that has been America’s closest Arab ally.

After years of promoting globalisation, America’s attitude, like Corzine’s, seems to have changed. And it’s not only Arab countries feeling the heat. Chinese takeovers have also caused political storms and some leading businessmen fear even the Germans would have difficulty getting a deal done in today’s environment. America appears to be shutting its doors.

Last week rising protectionism led British officials to accuse America of “hypocrisy”, and the chief executives of 17 leading financial firms — including Corzine’s Goldman Sachs — warned that new trade barriers would have “a chilling effect on foreign investment”.

“The irony of protectionism is that it destroys what it seeks to protect. Free trade cannot be a one-way street,” Alan Johnson, trade and industry secretary, told a London conference.

Johnson’s comments reflect increasing government concern about the growing trend towards protectionism in America and elsewhere in the European Union.

The French and Spanish governments took action last month to block potential takeovers of their national energy companies by foreign rivals.

Last week the board of the French telecoms firm Alcatel met to discuss its $35 billion (£20 billion) merger talks with Lucent Technologies of the US, amid fears that this deal could also fall foul of national security concerns in Congress.

Johnson said the backlash against globalisation was being fuelled by genuine concerns about the price of oil, foreign competition and energy supplies. But he warned that the “superficially attractive [and] politically tempting” protectionist route offered “short-term gain and long-term ruin”.

Fears of US protectionism have been on the rise since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Last year a political backlash helped to kill a bid by China’s CNOOC to acquire Unocal, a Houston oil and gas producer. A similar storm failed to stop China’s Lenovo buying IBM’s computer-making arm, but the Dubai Ports deal has led to the US Senate working on a bill that marks the most significant tightening of US foreign- investment rules in 20 years.

Under the bill, the Treasury Department will have to notify Congress of proposed deals, opening up a process normally kept secret.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive