US president Donald Trump has learnt that he cannot bully China but believes he can bully everybody else and nothing suggests he is wrong. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
The truism that the future is uncertain is made more concrete when the principal guest at a conference on a Swiss mountain had previously declared a trade war for territory against his country’s closest allies, many of whose leaders were also guests. This is surreal, at the least. But what does it mean for the world’s future, not least its economic future, to be vulnerable to the unpredictable whims of the president of the world’s leading power?
Before returning to that question, let us look at where the economy has been and might go in the near future. The World Bank’s new Global Economic Prospects provides a clarifying view of the recent past.
In particular, it notes: “The global economy has shown notable resilience to heightened trade tensi
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