{"text":[[{"start":7.94,"text":"A year ago this week, Donald Trump, with an aggressive rhetorical flourish, announced a range of tariffs against trading partners across the world. His “liberation day” levies attracted deserved derision. They were based on an unfounded state-of-emergency legal premise, and a dubious mathematical formula that ended up imposing tariffs on, among others, an archipelago of sub-Antarctic islands inhabited only by penguins."}],[{"start":38.79,"text":"The liberation day tariffs have failed so far on all fronts: practical, economic, political and legal. Trump was forced to reverse them a week later after a toxic reaction in financial markets, returning four months afterwards to impose a less drastic set of duties. They have shown no signs yet of achieving their various contradictory aims, including closing the overall trade deficit and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US."}],[{"start":70.27,"text":"They are also deeply unpopular with the US public — Pew Research found six in 10 disapproved of Trump’s increased tariffs — and business. To top it all, the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional last month, forcing Trump to rush to replace them with only slightly less arbitrary tariffs based on the balance of payments, unfair trade and national security. "}],[{"start":96.21,"text":"One gratifying development is that, unlike the 1930s, other governments have shown very little sign of wanting to follow America’s lead. There has been no escalatory spiral of tariffs."}],[{"start":110,"text":"Yet neither have other governments done much to play the role the US once did of seeking to anchor the world trading system. Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, gave a high-profile speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January calling for countries to adjust to a world without a US hegemon."}],[{"start":131.29,"text":"The sentiment was fine, but the practice is missing. Carney and others have been talking about an alliance of middle powers seeking to save multilateral trade. So far, this has mainly been conspicuous by its absence."}],[{"start":147.76999999999998,"text":"The 12-member Asia-Pacific CPTPP group of countries has been talking for more than a year about working in concert with the EU. But given their different approaches to regulation, plus concerns about needlessly provoking the US, excitable talk about the two trading powers docking with each other and leading a multilateralist charge is a long way from reality. The World Trade Organization meeting of ministers that just ended in Cameroon produced little more than a vague EU-CPTPP statement of co-operation and support for the WTO, and a promise to work towards a digital trade deal."}],[{"start":186.95,"text":"Regional and bilateral preferential trade agreements continue to proliferate. The CPTPP has several applicant countries in the pipeline (including, intriguingly, both China and Taiwan) and the EU has recently concluded agreements with the South American Mercosur bloc. Even India has overcome its traditional reluctance to sign trade deals to reach (somewhat thin) agreements with the EU and the UK."}],[{"start":216.82999999999998,"text":"This does not, though, translate into effective global governance. Even as it is signing those preferential agreements, India is seeking to block WTO negotiations across the board. China portrays itself as a strong supporter of the WTO, and is certainly less destructive of negotiations than India. But its extensive system of trade-distorting state intervention, together with an aggressive export-oriented growth model that is creating huge trade deficits, means it cannot act as an anchor of the system."}],[{"start":251.63,"text":"Multilateral action has long traded at a hefty discount to multilateralist piety, and the gap has not shrunk since the US decided to absent itself. Governments need to work out, subject by subject, agreement by agreement, where concord can be achieved and then cement it into place with legal certainty. So far, there are few signs they are able to do so."}],[{"start":285.46,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1774946099_8555.mp3"}