Amid last week’s pomp and parades in London, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer toasted the trade deal they agreed in May as fresh reinforcement for the “special relationship” that binds Washington and London. What they will not stress is that outside this agreement, the two countries are actually headed in opposite directions on trade. While the United States continues to build steep tariff barriers, the U.K.—and most of America’s key trading partners—are trying to tear them down.
That’s not to say that free trade is dominating the global stage. China continues to subsidize excess capacity, dumping vast quantities of manufactured goods into global markets. Supply chains have fragmented as calls for “near-shoring” bring critical inputs closer to home. Over the last decade, the World Bank reports a sharp rise in the number of rules that restrict trade.
But like a stream, global trade flows inevitably find a way around whatever rock or log has fallen into their path. After 2.9% growth last year, rising trade policy uncertainty may lead to a slight contraction in overall volumes this year, according to the World Trade Organization (WTO). But the WTO’s most recent forecast predicts a rebound to 2.5% growth in 2026. Services trade, which is less affected by tariffs, may clock in around 4% this year and next.
Most of the chaos, of course, comes from Washington, where the Trump Administration’s deals so far have raised average U.S. tariffs to 17.7% from recent levels below 2%. This will likely rise higher still when sectoral tariffs on pharmaceuticals or semiconductors take effect.
Corporate executives rightly complain about tariff uncertainty that may shift with the next Truth Social post, but the future is clearer than they realize. After decades of leading the world’s efforts to reduce tariff barriers, America’s new direction looks locked in. Even a Supreme Court ruling against the president’s use of emergency powers to justify tariffs will likely only drive him to deploy similar measures under different legal mechanisms to address unfair trading practices or threats to strategically important sectors. And regardless of what any future president may think of Trump, no Republican or Democrat will lightly abandon an estimated $2.4 trillion in extra revenues over the next decade, given the parlous state of federal finances.
The irony is that, even as key trading partners have signed Trump’s protectionist deals, they still don’t buy the trade philosophy he is selling.
Canada and China retaliated against Trump’s tariffs, but most other countries have understood that retaliation only further distorts prices. Indeed, a brave few, including the E.U. and Japan, have even chosen to accept so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on their exports to the U.S., while slashing their own tariffs to zero on some U.S. imports. In one telling, they caved to U.S. pressure. But they have also just delivered their voters a tax cut, without widening their budget deficits.
Meanwhile, if Trump’s protectionism has badly damaged the WTO’s efforts to negotiate and enforce free trade rules, individual members clearly still understand the advantages of slashing tariffs. The European Union, which was founded on open market principles, just completed an agreement with Indonesia that reduces tariffs to zero on 80% of imports. Talks continue with India, Australia, and Mercosur, which includes South American countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Canada is in free-trade talks with the Southeast Asian economies of ASEAN. Japan is negotiating with the Gulf states.
Awkwardly for Starmer this week, the U.K. signed a free trade agreement with India over the summer, just before Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Indian imports as punishment for its Russian oil purchases. Even more awkwardly, British negotiators were the first non-Pacific country to join what was once the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump renounced as a disaster on the first day of his first term.
Trump’s backers argue that America needs tough medicine to bring back the manufacturing jobs that were lost to free trade. Other developed economies have seen their manufacturing sectors shrink in recent decades, but they seem to understand that more of those jobs were lost to automation than to trade policy. They also seem to realize that turning back the clock to pre-war protectionism isn’t the solution—and that free trade is here to stay.
It will be terribly expensive for America if that’s the case. And it will be harder than ever to correct Trump’s mistakes.
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