Economic activity in the Asia-Pacific was holding up better than expected in April, despite the region bearing the brunt of U.S. tariffs, said Krishna Srinivasan, director of the IMF’s Asia Pacific Department. The International Monetary Fund revised up Asia’s economic growth forecast on Thursday, but warned of risks to the outlook from trade policy uncertainty […]
As geopolitical tensions rise, fears of deglobalisation have taken centre stage. However, world trade has remained surprisingly resilient, at least through 2023. This column uses bilateral trade data from 187 countries between 2015 and 2023 to identify decoupling patterns and their economic impacts. Trade reorientation mirrors political alliances more than comparative advantage, with a quarter […]
President Trump’s tariff policy is shaking the global economy and generating high levels of trade policy uncertainty. This column challenges the economic reasoning behind recent US trade policies. It argues that tariffs generally lower economic welfare by distorting resource allocations. Furthermore, the resulting trade policy uncertainty will have additional negative effects on the global economy […]
Despite headlines dominated by threats and implementations of US and retaliatory tariffs since President Trump’s inauguration, it was not until his “Liberation Day” announcement on 2 April that equity prices fell significantly. This column asks why equity prices reacted so slowly to the elevated trade policy uncertainty that followed immediately after Trump’s election. Historical evidence […]
The major turbulence being experienced by the world economy could lead to a global recession and the collapse of the norms and institutions that have been critical for stability and economic development since the Second World War. In particular, the United States has adopted a level of tariff protection last seen in the 1930s and […]
President Trump’s 2025 tariffs mark the onset of the post-American leadership era. This column introduces The Great Trade Hack, a new CEPR Rapid Response book arguing that Trump’s trade policy, driven by a ‘Grievance Doctrine’, is emotionally coherent but economically incoherent. Despite their failure to deliver real solutions, tariffs persist as ‘policy placebos’ that deflect […]
