Donald Trump’s gift to globalisation

The plaque that honours David Ricardo in Bloomsbury seems almost designed to be walked past unnoticed. The nearby statue of his fellow free-trader Richard Cobden has become a popular latrine with the local bird population. And so a visual metaphor – about the soiled, neglected idea of trade – would have begun this column a few weeks ago.

Now? The Ricardian cause has no lack of friends. These include: financial markets, which have judged that US President Donald Trump’s tariffs will destroy wealth, or stop it being created; the Chinese embassy in Washington, which quotes Ronald Reagan’s case against protectionism back at his party; and, most tellingly, the left, which has chosen not to defend the tariffs as a reassertion of the state. In taking such a welcome stand on this issue, progressives may not realise quite how much is being admitted – the sanctity of price competition, for instance – but let’s not scare them off.