Financial globalization pressures governments to adopt business-friendly positions. The existing literature describes these pressures as originating from competition for capital among countries, and suggests convergence on a core set of policies relevant to foreign investors. We argue that the pressures from financial globalization are driven by credit conditions in the U.S., which transmit to domestic credit markets in other countries; and that these pressures extend to a much broader set of business-friendly policies, because governments use such policies to compensate domestic firms for higher borrowing costs when credit conditions tighten. We provide evidence for our argument using party manifestos from 59 countries between 1962-2017. Our paper documents a new link between global capital cycles and parties’ policy positions and suggests a mechanism connecting financial markets and global convergence to business-friendly politics.