In the coming months, it is likely that the way in which governments think about international trade and their fundamental values will evolve rapidly, as the promises and threats that President Trump made on the campaign trail become US policy.
To understand the likely nature of what happens next, contrast the sophisticated and measured remarks made by China’s President Xi Jinping at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, with President’s Trump’s blunt generalities about ‘America first’. In Davos, President Xi made clear that he believes in interdependence in trade, a view more in tune with global thinking than that of his new counterpart in Washington.
