Trade wars: A pause or is the end in sight?

How history can provide answers to today's tariff stand-off

To understand the support for tariff wars which has been led by US President Donald Trump, especially from his core base and so-called disenfranchised part of the electorate, we have to look back at some significant structural shifts that happened in the US and most G7 economies over the past 40 years.

In the late 1970s, more than half of the US wealth was controlled by the bottom 95%, while the top 1% owned about 7%. Inequality began to rise in the 1980s and was further accelerated by the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. Bold tax reforms initiated by the Jimmy Carter administration in the 1970s, and later implemented by Ronald Reagan's government, kicked off the so-called "wealth accumulation" phase in the developed world.  Deregulation initiatives aimed at the financial services industry, as well as tax cuts for the wealthy, started successfully feeding through to financial assets su...