Just in case you're looking for an opportunity to read some more about tariffs, Howard Marks has a new memo out titled "Nobody Knows (Yet Again)." In it, he talks about comparative advantage, how global trade has benefited Americans, and what this could mean for the future.
Here's an excerpt that I found interesting specifically because I've also been thinking about the parallels with Brexit:
I consider the tariff developments thus far to be what soccer fans call an “own goal” – a goal scored for the other side when a player accidentally puts the ball into his own team’s net. In this way, they’re highly analogous to Brexit, and we know how that turned out. Brexit cost the British mightily in terms of GDP, morale, and alliances, and it harmed their reputation for governance and stability. All of this damage was self-inflicted.
In the memo, he also provides an important history lesson:
To cite one more factor that has made the world a better place, I describe the behavior of the U.S. in the post-World War II period as “generosity toward the rest of the world stemming from enlightened self-interest.” Under the Marshall Plan, we gave (not loaned) billions of dollars with which Western Europe rebuilt. Likewise, between 1945 and 1952, General Douglas MacArthur oversaw the reconstruction of Japan and the strengthening of its economy. Since then, the U.S. has (a) distributed extensive foreign aid, (b) invested heavily in healthcare in developing nations, (c) created programs that bring foreign students to the U.S. and vice versa, and (d) beamed positive messages to people throughout the world. These are all instances of generosity. In each “transaction,” we gave more than we directly got, and a cynic might say we acted like suckers.
Yes, these things can be described as largesse, but as the National Archive puts it, the Marshall Plan “provided markets for American goods, created reliable trading partners, and supported the development of stable democratic governments in Western Europe.” That’s a pretty good payoff. People in other countries received lots of freebies, but certainly these programs helped the U.S. by restraining communism, bringing nations into defensive alignment with the U.S., and contributing to the U.S.’s position as the world’s most prosperous nation. I have no interest in seeing the U.S. turn isolationist.
Unfortunately, greater isolation will almost certainly be one of the consequences of Trump's tariffs. It doesn't matter that many of them have now been paused; the damage has been done. We've seen this spastic movie before. In fact, they could all go to zero tomorrow, and there would still be damage.
This is an enormous change to the world order.
Cover photo by taro ohtani on Unsplash
We all know what happened this week:
Donald Trump’s decision on April 2 2025 to enact sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. They will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets across the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped to create.
We also know it was based on highly questionable math:
His “reciprocal” levies amount to a back-of-the-envelope calculation. They take trade partners’ US trade deficit in goods as a share of imports from that country, and then divide it by two. This is not a calibrated attempt to equalise tariff and non-tariff barriers facing US exporters, perceived or otherwise. It is, however, a reckless repudiation of all trade agreements the US has signed, as well as a deeply flawed plan to attract foreign manufacturing investment.
So what happens next?
Assuming this behavior persists, the US will continue to isolate itself from global trade, and the rest of the world will pivot and quickly move to trade more freely among themselves. This maybe isn't as problematic as some might think. Today, the US represents about 13.5% of global goods imports, which is down from almost 20% in 2000. And the biggest drivers of global growth are now China and the Euro area.
To that end, here's a fascinating study from IMD Business School that looked at how long it will take for various trading partners to completely wean themselves off of the US. And to do this, they looked at non-US import growth for the 10-year period from 2012 to 2022, and then extrapolated. This is what they learned:
What this chart says is that by the end of this year, some 70 US trading partners could, in theory, replace the loss of the US export market so long as non-US growth continues as it did in the past. And by 2039, the number jumps to over 140 trading parties. 2039 is obviously a long ways away, but I think it's noteworthy that year one in this specific chart already starts with 70.
Importantly, Canada does not fall within this initial bucket. Based on the study, we are in the danger zone. That is, exports to the US make up more than 10% of our GDP and it will take more than 10 years for full export recovery. But again, this is based on historic non-US growth. So all this means is that the status quo cannot continue; we need to dramatically increase this growth rate and do it as quickly as possible.
I hope our leaders recognize the urgency of this, because nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to the US right now. We need to be hyper focused on full trade recovery as soon as possible. Canada needs to be open for business to the world.