In the span of seven months, Donald Trump has remade a global trading system that took over seventy years to construct.

The demolition and reconstruction has been easier than even the US president himself likely imagined. That’s because other countries have been willing to quickly ditch the rules-based trading order that just a few years ago many professed was the bedrock of international economic prosperity.

To appreciate the scale of change, step back from the whirlwind tariff news cycle for a moment. When Trump came into office in January, the effective US tariff rate on the world was approximately 2.5 percent. Today it is more than 15 percent and climbing. When the president’s August tariffs are implemented next week, along with additional sectoral tariffs on copper, pharmaceutical

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