Even without national protectionism we are still experiencing isolationism, expect instead of it being done by nations in the interest of their citizens it is being done by corporations in the interest of their shareholders and it's leading to a dangerous amount of centralization as well.

Compatibility protocols are probably the best answer, allow individual countries to develop software they trust to interact with internationally accepted protocols and formats. As you said, good luck getting anyone to agree to anything. If email didn't already exist I don't think it would even be possible to implement today.