Our Thought Leadership Monthly looks back, every second Thursday of each month, on choice reads in our coverage that helped to shape the global conversation on trade policies and related issues. They highlight significant trade developments beyond the mainstream radar and advance our agenda of keeping trade open, inclusive, and mutually beneficial.
There is by now no doubt that the world is deep in trade chaos. Even with Donald Trump’s “reverse ferret” move to suspend his reciprocal tariffs yesterday for the next three months, it remains clear that US trade policy implemented under the new Trump administration vastly accelerated its descent far faster than the “minimally disruptive environment” that Trump's economic advisor Stephen Miran recommended. Those words, published by Miran in November, now seem sadly anachronistic. As the rift between the US and the rest of the world widens, we turn this month to our past coverage to see on how the fractures began and, in some cases, what we thought ought to have been done. In this edition, Deborah Elms lays out a warning on the chaos portended in Trump’s vision of reciprocity. We revisit Bert Hofman’s proposal for a “Committee to Save the Rest of the World.” Keith Rockwell discusses in a podcast the damage Trump is wreaking on the transatlantic alliance. Plus, we dusted off Visual Capitalist's “Great Wave” of protectionism – the graphic is nicknamed for its evocation of Hokusai’s woodblock print – as industrial policy hits global trade in full force.
US TRADE POLICY
What we know about Trump’s reciprocal tariffs
Deborah Elms Published 18 February 2025
In early February, Donald Trump took to his favorite platform to tweet in his preferred upper case: “TODAY IS THE BIG ONE: RECIPROCAL TARIFFS!!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” The plan that followed, laid out in three White House memos, is a momentous upending of the global trading system, which the US played a huge role in creating in 1947. The new US system, kicked off last week, raises every US tariff on every trading partner according to five criteria that take into account any trade practice that the US deems “unfair.” As our Trade Policy Head Deborah Elms writes, the policy spells out how Washington is no longer interested in anything but resetting the world trade order unilaterally.
Responding to Trump 2.0: A Committee to Save the Rest of the World
Bert Hofman published 18 March 2025
In February 1999, TIME put three men on its cover: Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan, and Lawrence Summers. The magazine dubbed the trio “the Committee to Save the World,” lauding the three Americans for fighting crisis after crisis in global finance and trade. Bert Hofman, longtime director and now professor at Singapore’s East Asian Institute and Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute and MERICS, observes in a guest editorial for the Hinrich Foundation that, while controversies have dogged their careers, there’s no doubt the trio represented a time when the US pulled the world together. Now that the US has turned the great disruptor of the international system, the time may have come for a “Committee to Save the Rest of the World,” Bert writes.
Protectionism has become the hallmark of trade policy worldwide. As Visual Capitalist depicts in this illustration, which evokes Hokusai’s iconic ‘Great Wave Off Kanagawa’, North America and Russia have emerged as among the world’s biggest implementers of protectionism. And the overwhelming brunt of trade restrictions hits exports from democracies, not autocracies, according to the G20 Trade Policy Factbook by Global Trade Alert.
Donald Trump last week announced a 25% tariff on aluminum and steel imports, an opening salvo against a swathe of countries including one of his top targets: America’s oldest ally Europe. While European leaders claim they are better prepared for Trump’s second term, the reality is they are in a far weaker position than in his first. With a major war on its eastern border, crushing energy costs, and political turmoil roiling the union’s anchor members Germany and France, stability across the continent is at risk as Trump forges ahead without the EU to cut a deal with Putin on Ukraine. Tune into this special podcast as Senior Research Fellow Keith Rockwell probes the damage Trump might wreak on the transatlantic alliance.
.png?upscale=true&width=88&height=88&upscale=true&name=deborah-elms%20HF-modified%20(1).png){kind=small}
.png?upscale=true&width=88&height=88&upscale=true&name=AFPC-USA%20logo-modified%20(1).png){kind=small}
