Introduction

Globalisation has long been heralded as a driving force for economic growth, international cooperation, and cultural exchange. However, the rise of populist nationalism in recent years has cast a shadow over this narrative. Nowhere has this shift been more evident than in the economic policies of US President Donald J. Trump. By imposing tariffs and launching a trade war – most notably with China- Trump challenged the foundations of globalisation. In his 2025 second term, President Donald J. Trump has intensified protectionist trade measures, marking a significant departure from the principles of globalisation. The administration's recent tariff implementations have disrupted international trade and signalled the collapse of globalisation and a robust shift towards economic nationalism. This essay examines how Trump's trade policies undermine globalisation and revitalise state protectionism, reflecting a broader transformation in global economic governance.

Undermining Globalisation: The Trump Doctrine and the Challenge to Global Trade Governance

The concept of globalisation, particularly in its economic dimension, rests on the foundational principle of the uninhibited flow of goods, services, capital, and information across national borders. This liberal order has been institutionalised through mechanisms such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), which facilitates multilateral trade agreements and serves as an impartial forum for resolving disputes among member states. However, I argue that President Donald Trump's trade policies – both during his first term and his return to power in early 2025, represent a profound deviation from this model, revealing a sustained embrace of economic nationalism that undermines the very architecture of global trade governance.

The trade war initiated in 2018 under the Trump administration marked a significant rupture. The imposition of tariffs on approximately $250 billion worth of Chinese imports was rationalised through concerns about intellectual property theft, market access asymmetries, and the escalating US trade deficit (Representative, 2018). While these concerns were not without merit, the administration's unilateral approach – ignoring the WTO's dispute settlement mechanisms, exposed a more profound contempt for multilateralism. As Hopewell (2021) has convincingly argued, Trump's actions represented a policy divergence and a structural challenge to the liberal economic order that had prevailed since Bretton Woods. This pattern has not only persisted but intensified in Trump's current term. On February 1, 2025, he signed executive orders enacting sweeping tariffs: a 25% levy on all imports from Mexico and Canada and a targeted 10% tariff on Canadian oil and energy products. Justified by the administration on grounds of national security—particularly the combatting of contraband drug flows and illegal immigration—these measures conflated border security concerns with economic policy. This signals an increasingly securitised logic in US trade strategy, in which economic tools are deployed for political signalling and commercial advantage.

Canada and Mexico's swift retaliatory tariffs underscored the risks of such unilateralism, threatening the integrity of North American trade integration achieved over decades. Yet, the more defining moment came on April 2, 2025. In his "Liberation Day" speech, President Trump announced a universal 10% baseline tariff on all US imports, with supplemental country-specific tariffs justified based on perceived unfair trade practices. This action was framed rhetorically as a bold "economic independence" assertion to reduce trade imbalances and revitalise domestic manufacturing. I believe this shift toward protectionism must be understood not merely as a departure from globalisation but as a deliberate reconfiguration of US economic identity. The Trump administration's trade agenda invokes a nostalgic economic nationalism that valorises self-sufficiency while eroding the cooperative norms that have historically governed the international trading system. The long-term consequences of this approach remain uncertain. Still, one thing is clear: The United States, under Trump, has become a revisionist actor in global economic governance—actively challenging the rules it once helped to establish.

Economic Nationalism: A Global Retreat from Liberal Trade

In reflecting on the trade policy orientation of President Donald Trump, I argue that his administration marked a decisive shift away from the liberal internationalist consensus that had defined US economic policy for decades. At the heart of this shift was a coherent and controversial doctrine of economic nationalism. This worldview elevates domestic production, employment, and industrial sovereignty above the imperatives of global market integration. This doctrine embodied the "America First" agenda, which sought to revitalise US manufacturing by imposing protective tariffs on key sectors such as steel and aluminium (Bown, 2020). While these measures were publicly defended on national security grounds, I believe they signalled a strategic repurposing of WTO provisions—stretching the legitimacy of Article XXI beyond its traditional scope. Critics, including many among America's allies, interpreted this manoeuvre not as a genuine security imperative but as a politicised circumvention of the rules-based trading system (Irwin, 2018).

Moreover, the Trump administration's approach was not confined to tariff measures alone. I observe that a core component of this economic nationalism lies in the aggressive renegotiation of trade agreements to prioritise US interests. Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) reflected this recalibration. Provisions mandating higher North American content in automobiles and protections for US dairy producers underscored a departure from the classical economic doctrine of comparative advantage. Rather than allowing market efficiencies to dictate production and trade flows, the Trump administration wielded state power to re-engineer trade rules favouring domestic constituencies (Ciuriak & Ptashkina, 2021).

From a geopolitical standpoint, I contend that the long-term implications of these policies are profound. The US-China trade war, initiated through unilateral tariffs and strategic decoupling, intensified the bilateral economic rivalry and contributed to the fragmentation of global supply chains. This deterioration in trade relations prompted many countries to reconsider their reliance on liberal trade norms. I interpret this as part of a broader pattern—what Lukin (2020) describes as the diffusion of protectionist thinking—where states increasingly assert sovereignty over economic decision-making in response to the vulnerabilities exposed by globalisation.

In sum, Trump's trade policies should be understood not as episodic disruptions but as expressions of a structural reorientation in US economic statecraft. I argue that this reorientation has had cascading effects, eroding the normative authority of the global trading system and legitimising a more inward-looking, interest-based approach to economic governance. In this sense, Trump's legacy lies not only in the content of his trade measures but in the global shift they have catalysed—a retreat from the liberal economic order toward a world of competing national capitalism.

The High Cost of Economic Nationalism: Trump's Trade War and Its Domestic Backlash

The Trump administration's embrace of economic nationalism, under the banner of "America First," marked a significant departure from decades of US trade policy centred on liberalisation and global integration. These policies have generated profound economic and political consequences. Rather than insulating the US economy, the trade war contributed to market instability, disrupting global supply chains with increased consumer costs and provoking retaliatory measures from key trading partners. Below, I explore the high cost of such protectionism, arguing that the trade war weakened the US economy and triggered a domestic backlash that exposed the political and strategic miscalculations at the heart of Trump's trade agenda.

Economic Implications of Tariff Impositions

The imposition of protective tariffs—especially on key imports such as steel and aluminium—was envisioned as a strategy to revitalise American manufacturing. Yet, the evidence points in a different direction. I have reviewed studies, including one published in The World Economy, which indicate that these tariffs led to sharp declines in equity prices, reduced Treasury yields, and widened corporate spreads. The US dollar appreciated significantly against the Chinese yuan during this period, further undermining the competitiveness of American exports. Importantly, market reactions to trade tensions reveal a deeper economic malaise. A positive shock in the trade war was statistically linked to a decline in the S&P 500 index, signalling substantial market capitalisation losses (Greco, 2023). In addition, projections by the Tax Foundation estimate that a universal 10% tariff could reduce US real GDP by 0.5%. More severe tariff regimes would produce even deeper contractions. I interpret these projections as a clear indictment of the limitations of protectionism in a globally interdependent economy. The economic costs were not confined to GDP figures or stock markets. American consumers bore the brunt of these tariffs through increased prices on imported goods and intermediate products. Many small and medium enterprises, reliant on global supply chains, faced rising production costs, job cuts, and in some cases, closures. Far from shielding the domestic economy, these tariffs magnified vulnerabilities within key industrial sectors.

Historical Parallels and Strategic Misjudgements

Reflecting on this period, I am reminded of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Enacted with similar protectionist intent, it instead contributed to a collapse in global trade and deepened the Great Depression (Contractor, 2025). The parallels are sobering. Just as retaliatory tariffs from US trading partners in the 1930s exacerbated the crisis, so did the Trump-era trade war provoke countermeasures from China and other affected nations. These historical echoes underscore the fundamental miscalculation in assuming that unilateral trade barriers can yield long-term economic gains. What makes this a particularly consequential policy failure is the administration's disregard for economic interdependence in an era of globalisation. The strategic error was not merely economic and financial, but also political - failing to account for how deeply Americans depend on affordable goods, open markets, and stable trade relationships.

Public Response and Political Repercussions

As the economic consequences of the trade war become more visible, there is a growing wave of public dissent. Across the country (USA), farmers, manufacturers, and consumers voiced frustration over policies that disrupted their livelihoods. Demonstrations in key states reflected a sense of betrayal among constituents who had initially supported the administration’s expected economic revival but were experiencing the opposite. This public backlash illustrates what I consider a profound political miscalculation. By framing protectionism as a path to national strength, the administration misread the realities of 21st-century economic life. Instead of reinforcing domestic confidence, the tariffs fuelled insecurity, division, and widespread disillusionment. The discontent is not just economic - it is existential, questioning the premise of the trade war and the leadership that pursued it.

Conclusion

The resurgence of economic nationalism under President Donald J. Trump—particularly evident in his aggressive trade policy—marks a decisive rupture from the globalisation consensus that shaped international economic relations for much of the post-Cold War era. The Trump administration has repositioned the United States as a revisionist force in global economic governance through sweeping tariffs, unilateral renegotiations of trade agreements, and the strategic reconfiguring of multilateral norms. This reorientation not only undermined the institutional pillars of liberal trade—such as the World Trade Organization—but also catalysed a broader normative shift towards protectionism and state-led economic sovereignty across the world. Crucially, while these policies were rhetorically grounded in the promise of revitalising domestic industry and reclaiming national economic autonomy, their material consequences have been more ambiguous. 

The trade war destabilised markets, disrupted global supply chains, and imposed real economic costs on American businesses and consumers. Historically resonant with the isolationist impulses of the 1930s, the Trump doctrine demonstrated the perils of neglecting economic interdependence in an integrated global economy. Politically, the domestic backlash against these measures exposed the fragility of the administration's populist economic appeal, revealing a disconnect between nationalist ambitions and socioeconomic realities. In sum, Trump's trade agenda should be interpreted not merely as a temporary aberration but as a manifestation of deeper tensions within the global order—between openness and sovereignty, integration and autonomy. As economic nationalism continues to shape policy debates in the United States and beyond, the future of globalisation hangs in the balance. Whether the world returns to cooperative trade governance or embraces a more fragmented system of competing national capitalism may depend on the lessons learned from this pivotal moment in economic history.

About the AUTHOR

Teddy Foday-Musa is a Lecturer in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone (USL). Teddy graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree in Political Science from Fourah Bay College (FBC), the University of Sierra Leone, and holds a post-graduate honours Diploma in Journalism and Newswriting from the London School of Journalism (LSJ), United Kingdom. Teddy has worked for Peace and Good Governance both in the Netherlands and in his native country, Sierra Leone. He can be contacted vide Email: [email protected] Mobile: +232-76670459

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