> The US was convinced otherwise by economists who don't believe in nation-states

You mean economists ultimately employed by the corpo ownership class, who were using those "beliefs" as cover to put money into their own pockets for shipping entire production lines overseas. Of course the corpo ownership class hasn't sat still - now that the jig is up, they've moved on to the next scam of destroying what remains of our distributed economy so they can continue centralizing. They've even come up with revanchist political movement based around rallying cries that would have helped the common person iff done decades ago, to make the average joe think they're finally being listened to...