How Trump team's global economic reordering could affect Singapore

The existence of an FTA is no protection against the next administration's views on tariffs as a tool to promote 'structural economic overhauls'.

- Linda Lim

President-elect Donald Trump's announcement of his picks for top economic positions in his upcoming administration has led to another round of speculation as to what they might mean for his economic policies.

Trump has nominated Wall Street hedge fund executive Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary, Mr Howard Lutnick, CEO of a leading financial services firm, for Commerce Secretary, and economist Kevin Hassett, who formerly headed his Council of Economic Advisers, as head of the National Economic Council.

These men are all respected, experienced mainstream professionals, causing US financial markets to signal their approval, expecting them to provide internal checks-and-balances to the more extremist impulses of other Trump advisers and officials, and of the President-elect himself.

But what unites these Trump loyalists and binds them to their boss?

A 'GLOBAL ECONOMIC REORDERING'

Mr Bessent's call for a "grand global economic reordering" indicates a deep dissatisfaction with the existing global economic order. This is the "rules-based international order", with multilateral institutions like the WTO and IMF underpinning the liberalisation of cross-border trade, capital and labour flows.

Trump and his team believe that the US has not benefited from this global order as much as other, "free-riding", countries, and that some sectors of the economy, particularly manufacturing, have lost, even as others, particularly finance, have gained.

Inequality and volatility have increased, as has dependence on immigration, in the US and other advanced industrial countries. Disaffection with globalisation - particularly the 2008-09 global financial crisis - contributed to the rise of populist-nationalist political forces. This culminated in 2016 in Brexit and Trump's first election as president, reprising in 2024 with his re-election and the electoral advance of right-wing populist-nationalist parties in Europe.