Global Trade Is Leaving the US Behind

Perhaps the most surprising trade policy development of 2025 wasn’t President Donald Trump’s tariffs but rather foreign governments’ refusal to respond in-kind. Although such abstinence is economically optimal, politicians typically embrace tit-for-tat retaliation for political and strategic reasons. So, when only China and Canada followed Trump’s protectionist lead, the relative quiet was an unusual, albeit welcome, result.

It didn’t mean, however, that governments, companies, and even many individuals were standing still. Instead, they “retaliated” in a smarter way: reducing their future reliance on a US that has increasingly embraced protectionism since at least 2016 – protectionism that, ironically, might be helping the very country tariffs were supposed to contain.