At the beginning of this month, Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs sent markets into a tailspin. The Nobel Prize-winning American economist Paul Krugman let out a despairing howl: “America created the modern world trading system,” he said, later adding that “Donald Trump burned it all down”. Meanwhile, as the US president and his coterie of advisers took a sledgehammer to global economic shibboleths, I wondered, “how to make this about me?”

On the evening of liberation day, I stood in a garden with some friends. Among them was an arch-conservative. He defended the tariffs and made the case for economic protectionism. Days later, I read a Telegraph columnist express sceptical admiration for Trump’s politicking, or for not merely “caretaking history” but “attempting to change it”. As far as I understood it, arch-conservatives and Telegraph columnists were once the great champions of globalisation and free trade. The same caste of people who advocated for Brexit on the grounds that it would establish – in that now rather noxious term – “Global Britain” are now retreating from the idea entirely. Trade deals with the whole world was the dream in 2016; oh, we didn’t really mean it, is the sense in 2025.

Far from me to condemn anyone or any group for changing their mind. It is a virtue, in any case, to........

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