The populist damage to the trading system
Around the world, populism has weaponised anxieties over globalisation and other forms of social change. This column argues that populist trade policies have damaged the global trading system through protectionist policies themselves and by undermining the rules and norms of the WTO. The author suggests that the Trump administration’s national security tariffs and Brexit have inflicted the greatest populist damage on trade rules and trade integration so far and that economic and institutional reforms will be necessary to break the populist influence on trade policy.
