The hidden costs of ‘slowbalisation’

The emergence of an open multilateral trading system that separated trade from geopolitics played a pivotal role in driving the post-World War II economy. But with trade policies increasingly shaped by geopolitical considerations, a new paradigm is becoming visible.

This trend started with the tariffs that former United States president Donald Trump imposed on Chinese imports in 2018, which President Joe Biden’s administration has maintained, and which caused China to impose its own tariffs on imports from the United States.

Then, in 2022, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, G7 countries and the European Union imposed sweeping economic sanctions on Russia, effectively prohibiting exports to Russia and imports of Russian goods.