Radical, risky The week Trump rocked the global economy

Donald Trump's stunning overhaul of US trade policy has called time on an era of globalization and alarmed citizens, governments and investors around the world.

- Callum Jones

No one should have been surprised, he says.

The announcement of 10% to 50% tariffs on US trading partners tanked stock markets after Trump unveiled a "declaration of economic independence" so drastic it drew comparison with Britain's exit from the EU.

But the US president, who won re-election promising tariffs would Make America Great Again, has advocated their return with "great consistency". "I've been talking about it for 40 years," he noted in the White House's rose garden.

Many businesses, economists, and politicians believe Trump's trade plan is wrongheaded, flawed and risky. Some have even suggested it might have been written by ChatGPT.

But he is unquestionably right when it comes to the number of decades he has argued for it.

"This is so unusual for Trump. He's a conventional politician in one way: he doesn't believe in much deeply," said Larry Sabato, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia.

"This one thing, he seems to deeply believe in."

As far back as 1987, when he was a fame-hungry real estate tycoon, Trump took out full-page ads in newspapers calling for tariffs.

Other major economies were the "greatest profit machines ever created" and should be taxed, Trump argued.

Eight years after the start of his first term, and just 10 weeks into his second, he has finally set about seriously delivering that dream - and has cast aside warnings it may turn into a nightmare.

On the campaign trail last year, Trump made no secret of his vision: tariffs would unshackle the US economy, he promised, revitalize its industrial heartlands and unlock a gigantic financial windfall for the federal government.

But after pitching this big, beautiful and bold reconstruction of the global economic order, the early actions of the second Trump administration were strikingly smaller, messier and altogether more hesitant than trailed.