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The World Ahead | Economics in 2025

What Donald Trump’s election means for the global economy

His explosive plan for tariffs will damage world trade, but he will struggle to implement it in full

A bomb with a dollar sign on it.
image: Ben Hickey

By Alice Fulwood, Wall Street editor, The Economist

ALMOST A CENTURY has elapsed since America’s Congress last passed a bill into law levying tariffs on imported goods. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised average tariffs on imports by around 20% and incited a tit-for-tat trade war, was devastatingly effective: global trade fell by two-thirds. It was so catastrophic for growth in America and around the world that legislators have not touched the issue since. “Smoot-Hawley” became synonymous with disastrous economic policymaking.

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Will “tariff man” get his way?”

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