A scenario has been opened to transform the rules of the game of global trade and the international economy, built after the Second World War. Focusing on Trump’s America, we are on the doorstep of a radical strategic tour of the trade policy of the EE.UU. In addition to the discourse, the first evidence of the new economic and commercial path is already strong: Trump has put aside the multilateralism of the past 70 years and has launched a unilateral strategy. The new United States Government will leave the TPP free trade zone in the Pacific Rim and intends to set a 20% premium for Mexican import goods. If this measure is taken, the North American Free Trade Area – NAFTA: What includes the United States, Mexico and Canada, would be de facto demolished. The TTIP process, which is being negotiated with Europe, has been suspended.

One of the axes of the economic hegemony of the United States has been globalization and trade liberalization in its foreign economic policy. The main economic power has guided the pace and gradation of trade liberalization on demand, first taking precedence over GATT and then the multilateral management of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The agreed and multilateral procedure for the liberalization of international trade, which has as its main measure the dismantling of tariffs, has been present in the last seven decades, although deterrence has also been used. The widespread liberalisation of the last half of the century has focused on trade and manufacturing finance. Protection and regulation has been maintained in other areas, such as agriculture, most services or intellectual protection. Thus, many US transnational companies have managed to ensure their global expansion and that international trade is aware of strong growth. The new US president has questioned this multilateral model of selective liberalization of international trade.

In any case, the crisis of this model was evident when analyzing its evolution over the last decade. In fact, the WTO’s Doha negotiating round, which was opened in 2001, is not long behind. That is why and by the eruption of international actors as powerful as China, the United States has preferred regional liberalisation agreements at the beginning of this century. After NAFTA, from Washington they have promoted the Pacific Free Trade Agreement – the TPP – or the Atlantic Free Trade Agreement – the TTIP – and others. In other words, the playing field of trade policy has been uncertain in the last decade.

In the field of global trade regulation II. The bases built since the World War are in the process of exploding. The scope of the protectionist impulse of the United States remains to be seen. A stream of opinion among the alterglobalist forces, such as Susan George, does not see with bad eyes the new American trade wave, insofar as it involves the dismantling of free trade areas, including TTIP. Although Trump’s economic policy is looking for short-term benefits, the negative effects from there are obvious. Unilaterality does not bring any benefit to anyone or to the United States, as the loss of profitability, the fall in productivity and inflation in the U.S. production system will be affected. This will strengthen the logic of protection. If the reactive response of the rest of the world occurs in this logic, the consequences are unpredictable.