Trump's Tariff Wall Is a Break With the Past

The world is witnessing a transition from a rules-based system of managed economic integration to one of coerced decoupling, chaotic fragmentation, and economic self-reliance

- Ian Bremmer

Donald Trump's return to the White House has ushered in a new era of American trade policy, one that represents a fundamental break from the past—including his own first term. The so-called "tariff wall" that Trump intends to build around the U.S. is not just a more aggressive version of his transactional first-term policies. Rather, it represents a far more ambitious effort to reshape the global economic order and America's place in it, driven by a president significantly less deterred by consequences than last time.

The first bricks of this tariff wall were laid on March 4 with the imposition of 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico that had been initially threatened in early February and delayed at the last minute. The U.S. also doubled the 10% tariffs on Chinese goods it had imposed a month prior, bringing the cumulative rate on Chinese imports above 30%. Canada and Mexico immediately announced retaliatory measures targeting politically sensitive U.S. industries and states.

After two days of furious lobbying and market turmoil (which Trump blamed "globalists" for), cars from Mexico and Canada and products compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) had been granted a month-long reprieve from the duties.