Trade Splaining

Globalization is apparently back, according to DHL, a company with absolutely no stake in the matter. Its latest globalization tracker has globalization at a record high in 2025 and goods trade growing in the first half of 2026 at its fastest pace in 15 years (Covid rebound aside). Meanwhile, US-China trade is down to 1.6% of world goods trade, from a peak of 3.5% a decade ag...

The headlines say the tariff war is still raging. According to Richard Baldwin, Washington has spent the past year quietly backing away from it, one exemption and carve-out at a time. In episode 93, Robert Skidmore and I look at what that retreat means for a global trading system that increasingly seems to be organising itself around the US rather than through it. Then we sit...