Episode
S9 Ep22: World War Trade
- Podcast
- VoxTalks Economics
- Published
- Apr 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1612
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://audioboom.com/posts/8882063
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Summary
On 2 April 2025, the United States imposed tariffs on almost every country on earth. The next day, China responded with export controls on the entire world. In the space of one week, world trade had been weaponised as it has never been in peacetime. Richard Baldwin of IMD Business School, the founder of VoxEU and a former president of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, wrote World War Trade to make sense of the events of the last 12 months. The dramatic April salvos have settled into a trade Cold War; US tariffs and Chinese export controls are lodged in place, with neither side expecting the other to back down. And yet world trade grew in 2025; exports from every country rose except from the US, which recorded its largest trade deficit. The rest of the world is self-organising a new order. When one country joins a rules-based regional agreement, the cost of staying out rises for the next. EU-Mercosur and EU-Australia deals, stalled for years, crossed the line. An expanding CPTPP and early alignment talks between the EU and CPTPP blocs are pulling more partners in. The old system was a cathedral built and maintained largely by the US; the architect burned it down. Something else is being built in its place. The book discussed in this episode: Baldwin, Richard. 2026. World War Trade: Conflict, Containment, and the Emergent World Trading Order. Rapid Response Economics 6. CEPR Press. Free to download from CEPR Press. To cite this episode: Phillips, Tim, and Richard Baldwin. 2026. "World War Trade." VoxTalks Economics (podcast). Assign this as extra listening. The citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE. About the guest Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics at IMD Business School in Lausanne. He founded VoxEU, the Centre for…