'Liberation day' Bullying must stop but costs of globalisation will persist

Fundamentally wrong, brutal and paranoid. A preacher of voodoo economics attacking US allies and enemies alike. Condemnation of Donald Trump in the chaos since his "liberation day" has been swift.

- Richard Partington

Fundamentally wrong, brutal and paranoid. A preacher of voodoo economics attacking US allies and enemies alike. Condemnation of Donald Trump in the chaos since his "liberation day" has been swift. For most people the self-inflicted damage makes no sense. Far from making America great again, the president has made Washington an international pariah. There will be financial pain for ordinary Americans from wealth destruction in the markets, higher inflation and a probable US recession. Living standards elsewhere will be damaged, too, amid expectations for the worst global slowdown since the 2008 financial crisis, excluding the Covid pandemic.

But it would be wrong to revel in the backlash for too long. Trump's tariff madness is not a unique moment. The forces underpinning his political project - if the chaos can be dignified with such a label - have been long in the making and will require more than a rout in the bond markets to suppress.

As Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016, has warned: Trump is a symptom of a global sickness, not the cause. The events of the past week are only the tip of a much deeper crisis in globalised, free-market capitalism that has roots stretching back decades.