What's next for international trade?

FIRST, there was the WTO Doha round stumble and slow death. Then came the 2009 global financial crisis. Subsequently, the reported creeping increase in the use of non-tariff barriers to trade. Next, the EU-Singapore free-trade agreement (FTA) got stuck in a legal rut, followed by the UK voting to leave the world's most successful Free Trade Area. And now Donald Trump is happily ripping up trade agreements and threatening new tariffs. What is going on, and how worried should we be?

Not surprisingly, there has been a barrage of reporting on the implications of these developments on the future of international trade, often based on dubious statistics, as those are the best that are available.

This article will therefore stay away from the use of data, and focus on subjective opinions and gut-feel views of the trading world out there. Consider it food for thought.