President Trump’s second term tariff policies have upended long-standing global trade arrangements, caused market volatility and accelerated trends towards economic regionalism. Traditional trading partners are reassessing their economic and security relationships with the US. China’s use of its leverage in critical minerals has signalled a new phase in US-China economic relations.

Domestically, the recent Supreme Court ruling declaring tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) unlawful raises important questions about how the administration’s trade strategy will evolve going forward and how trading partners will respond. However, the President’s intent has not changed and there are a range of legislative bases he can use to continue deploying tariffs to try and achieve multiple goals.

In this on the record event Richard Baldwin, one of the world’s leading international economists and trade experts, will discuss the prospects for the world trading system with Creon Butler, Director of the Global Economy and Finance Programme.

• What will be the impacts of the Trump tariff shock on the US economy and the global economy over the short- and long-term?

• How might the global trading order evolve in response, and could there eventually be a re-emergence of rules-based multilateralism?

• What are the implications of the Trump tariff shock for the broader system of international economic and financial governance, including the oversight of AI and the position of developing countries?