‘Tariff wars threaten globalisation’

Rising tariffs and growing economic nationalism are posing fresh threats to globalisation, raising concerns over a deeper fracture in the global economic order, economist Gordon Hanson has warned.

Hanson, Professor in Urban Policy at Harvard University, said decades of global economic integration delivered major efficiency gains and lifted millions out of poverty, particularly after economies such as China and India joined the WTO. 

However, the benefits were unevenly distributed, leaving many industrial regions in advanced economies behind. The backlash has intensified through higher import tariffs in the US, aggressive industrial policy in China and Brexit in the UK. These shifts signal what Mark Carney has described as growing “geoeconomic rupture”, where trade increasingly becomes a geopolitical weapon. 

Hanson said economists underestimated the regional damage caused by globalisation, particularly in manufacturing hubs hit by import competition. 

Job losses, weak wage growth and slow labour mobility fuelled support for populist and protectionist politics. He warned that tariffs alone cannot restore lost competitiveness and often worsen economic distortions.  Without credible alternatives, he cautioned, tariff wars could accelerate the dismantling of the globalisation era. 

—FPJ News Service