International Trade Has Suffered a One-Two Punch. Can it Recover After COVID-19?

At the start of 2020, international trade was already under a protectionist cloud. Rising trade tensions between the US and the rest of the world, particularly China, had been in the economic headlines for three years, with US imports from China shrinking by a dramatic 17.7% between 2018–2019. Despite the Phase 1 deal signed between the two countries on 15 January 2020, few observers saw this as the last bump in the road in this tariff war…