A cargo ship maneuvering around a wall in the sea

Illustration: Simon Bailly / Sepia

Oct 8th 2025|Brasília and Washington, DC|7 min read

On April 2nd President Donald Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs, holding a board covered in figures showing just how unfairly the world treated America. The numbers were nonsense, but the message was clear: the age of free trade was over. Markets shuddered, America’s allies fumed and economists predicted catastrophe. Torsten Slok of Apollo, a private-markets giant, put the odds of a tariff-driven recession in America at 90%.

Signage for Mizuho Bank Ltd., a unit of Mizuho Financial Group Inc. (MHFG), at one of the bank's branches in Tokyo, Japan.

Why Donald Trump’s tariffs are failing to break global trade