As Donald Trump’s tariff war unleashes chaos, political leaders in Asia and Europe have declared that the era of post-cold war prosperity from global trade may finally be coming to a close.
“We are in the midst of a messy transition globally. To what, nobody can tell,” Singaporean prime minister Lawrence Wong said earlier this month, adding that nations were “turning inward” and “prioritising their own narrow interests”. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk echoed the warning in the same week, saying “the era of naive globalisation” was coming to an end.
For businesses, rising protectionism and decoupling between the US and China have thrown complex global supply chains into disarray, putting pressure on industries from technology and consumer goods to automotive and shipping.