Malaysia in a mercantilist world order

WHEN President Donald Trump announced his tariffs on Saturday, international media was noticeably slow in explaining the motives and implications. Even in Trump’s first term, analyses of the causes and consequences of an American protectionist policy were few and far between. Indeed, the world had not known American protectionism for nearly a century.

Since 1945, America's principles of freedom and the rule of law had led to the creation of the Bretton-Woods System, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, World Trade Organisation, and the European Economic Community. These in turn provided the model for market liberalism upon the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and laid the foundation for the global interdependent economy we know today.