"What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers." This statement is false and misleading. Barriers to U.S. citizens are EXTREMELY high. Friedman's statement is true only if you mean that barriers to non-U.S. companies and their citizens are low. There is a one-way street: goods and people can enter the U.S. but the U.S. has extraordinary difficulty sending people or products abroad. Read Ron Hira, Lou Dobbs, and Byron Dorgan. The proper title is "The World is an L." The flat part is entry into the U.S. The vertical part is the wall Americans face at other countries(China, Korea, Japan....)