With America’s obsession to gain revenue by restricting trade through customs and tariffs, a historical similarity presents itself: mercantilism. The core similarity between today’s trade framework and then is the focus more on political gains and revenue gained through restriction of goods than cooperative trade.

As Carroll Quigley noted, mercantilism was rendered obsolete by the Industrial Revolution and the advent of the steam engine, with James Watt’s patent in 1769 setting in motion pressures that eventually led to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Here, an important observation is pertinent: the economic theory of Ibn Khaldun in the Muqaddimah (c. 1377).

Khaldun noted that dynasties last roughly a century through three generations before disruptions overturn restrictive systems. Having predicted this nearly 800 years ago, it aligns with the fate of mercantilism’s disruption between 1769 and 1846.

Today, as we quickly advance into the AI age, with crypto challenging the global financial system, we find ourselves in a situation where history is repeating itself, albeit faster this time. With AI and crypto revolutions rhyming with the industrial and financial revolutions of the 19th century, the question remains not if but when tariffs and the current trade order become obsolete.

With giant leaps in technology each day, is the world keeping up with the legal frameworks required to sustain the current financial and trade order? Jurisdictional lines in international trading are quickly blurred if an AI bot set up in the Cayman Islands performs borderless work for an American company, with payment going to a Pakistani entrepreneur, without any physical movement of goods.

Just a few days ago, Japan’s NTT Data partnered with Google to build task-specific AI agents across 50 countries, specifically trained to perform sales and marketing operations. With the global AI agents market set to grow 10 times by 2030 (approximately USD 52.6 billion) as reported by MarketsandMarkets, we might be seeing the recreation of the digital services industry. These agents, for now, would not be bound by borders or customs authorities.

Meanwhile, we have Trump’s contradictory stance on tariffs which........

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