Welcome to a post-election inward-looking America

ASSUMING that we will know sometime this week who has won the US presidential election, and notwithstanding who will occupy the White House for the next four years, the world should be ready to confront a more isolationist and protectionist America.

Donald Trump has certainly made it clear that he is planning to pursue a more aggressive economic nationalist agenda, including imposing tariffs on all foreign imports from America’s trade partners.

Indeed, under a second Trump administration, the United States would cease to play the role of promoting a free-trade system. Instead it would adopt a mercantilist approach in an international economic system seen more and more as a global arena of free-for-alls between nations and economic blocs, at the centre of which would be the grand clash between a US-led trade and investment partnership and China.