5 reasons Trump's attack on global trade will backfire on the US
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Even in a place like Hong Kong, where trade accounts for 359 per cent of gross domestic product, the subject seems deadly boring to most people, including those whose livelihoods critically rely on it.
In normal times, this may not matter. In such times, people have better and more interesting things to do or care about. Not for nothing is trade in services often talked of as 'trade in invisibles'.
But in 2025, with the leader of the world's largest economy taking a wrecking ball to the
foundations of a global trading system that has improved the lives of billions of the world's population over the past eight decades, indifference to the workings of global trade and the ignorance it underpins threatens to have catastrophic consequences.
As US President Donald Trump blathers and vacillates with wanton disregard for the damage being done, trade ignorance and illiteracy are allowing him to get away with murder. And those around Trump who are not ignorant have been able to 'flood the zone' with fake claims devoured by '
Make America Great Again ' enthusiasts prone to wishful thinking.
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Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part to believe that if the nonsensical claims behind Trump's war on the global trading system are taken apart, then some of his harmful excesses may be reined in. Nevertheless, I'm giving it a go.
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