Bye, bye globalisation? Trump’s tariffs usher in a new economic age

WHEN US President Donald Trump launched his biggest tariff barrage and proclaimed “Liberation Day” last week, he may also have closed a chapter in economic history, bringing in the process an end to the era of breathtaking globalisation that powered the global economy for close to eight decades.

By applying across-the-board new tariffs of trillions of dollars to foreign imports, the president was sending a clear message that he wants products sold to American consumers to be manufactured in the US, and to undo the process of integrating the global economy and end the free trade policies that have driven it and that were pursued by dozens of presidents.

Under these policies that go back to the end of World War II, US leaders headed a global campaign to reduce barriers to trade, investment and finance, and to spread prosperity around the world.