SINGAPORE: Trying again on 2025, excellent news appears scant: Tariffs and conflicts dominated headlines. However the previous 12 months revealed not solely geopolitical fault traces, but additionally stunning resilience.
Tariffs didn’t result in skyrocketing inflation or recession, although their full results could but unfold. As 2026 approaches, a lot hinges on how international locations navigate the sector of huge energy competitors, in addition to contentious points from border conflicts to AI regulation.
Leaders have their work minimize out for them in 2026.
REVIVAL OF “AMERICA FIRST”
US President Donald Trump’s so-called Liberation Day (Apr 2) unleashed sweeping tariffs on buddy and foe alike, upending international provide chains and forcing international locations to barter commerce offers.
It triggered tit-for-tat measures between Beijing and Washington. On the peak of their standoff, sky-high tariffs meant that there was basically a US-China commerce embargo. Each international locations have since climbed down and reached a fragile truce.
Who gained? Observers stated that China has not bent to Mr Trump’s bluster and recognized the place it has leverage, for example, in uncommon earth exports.
Southeast Asian nations have been among the many worst hit by country-specific tariffs. Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have signed trade deals or not less than come to some settlement.
Singapore was slapped with a baseline 10 per cent tariff, regardless of a free commerce settlement and the US having fun with a commerce surplus. US Ambassador to Singapore Dr Anjani Sinha raised eyebrows together with his touch upon Washington’s function in “making Singapore’s financial miracle potential”, which observers see as an expectation that American companions owe a debt that needs to be paid back.
Mr Trump’s tariffs are at present going through authorized scrutiny within the US, however the specter of extra tariffs, together with sectoral levies on prescription drugs and semiconductors, is unlikely to go away in 2026.
