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Alan Beattie

Senior Trade Writer

Alan Beattie writes the Trade Secrets newsletter every Monday and an opinion column each Thursday, covering international trade, globalisation, the intersection of geopolitics and economics and the world financial system. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Based in London, he was previously the FT's international economy editor and world trade editor and has been also been based in Washington and Brussels for the FT. He is the author of False Economy (Penguin, 2009), a popular economic history of the world, and Who's In Charge Here? (Penguin, 2012), an account of governments' mishandling of the global financial crisis. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England.

Follow Alan on Bluesky​

Email Alan Beattie
  • Thursday, 17 April, 2025
    Trade SecretsTrump tariffs
    Trump’s auto tariffs build on a long destructive history

    It is US protectionism rather than trade barriers abroad that has undermined American carmakers

    A Ram Power Wagon pick-up truck
  • Monday, 14 April, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s tariffs are just one damn thing after another Premium content

    US trading partners should hold off offering concessions given this illogical shambles

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Treasury secretary Scott Bessent face people holding microphones
  • Wednesday, 9 April, 2025
    The best books of the week
    Five books to boost your understanding of tariffs and trade wars

    As tariffs escalate, FT specialists recommend titles that explain the forces and ideas shaping trade policy in recent decades, including President Trump’s trade war

    A view at dusk or early morning looking down over trucks waiting at a container terminal
  • Monday, 7 April, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    The dark days after the tariff apocalypse Premium content

    A short, medium and long-term guide to Donald Trump’s ‘liberation day’ duties

    US President Donald Trump holds a “Foreign Trade Barriers” document with an American flag behind him
  • Monday, 7 April, 2025
    The Economics Show podcast32 min listen
    Are US tariffs just the beginning? With Abraham Newman

    There are other tools of economic coercion in the modern global economy

  • Thursday, 3 April, 2025
    Trade SecretsProtectionism
    A US tariff pathology is unleashed upon the world

    The Republicans have allowed a destructive economic nationalist to lead America into chaos

    Illustration of a the map of America as a pathogen, filled with dots of different shades of red, surrounded by graph lines re-routing around USA
  • Monday, 31 March, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    World braces itself as US tariff ‘liberation day’ draws near Premium content

    No one knows what Trump will do — and at this moment that includes the president himself

    Donald Trump waves to the camera while walking
  • Thursday, 27 March, 2025
    Trade SecretsShipping
    The bogus trade rationale for the Signalgate attacks

    Bombing the Houthis won’t help global commerce but Trump’s auto and shipping protectionism will certainly damage it

    Oil tankers and a cruise ship pass in front of container ships moored off the Los Angeles
  • Monday, 24 March, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Disarray precedes Trump’s tariff Liberation Day Premium content

    While the US flails, the EU ponders how to deal with Chinese car subsidies

    US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick stand either side of President Donald Trump in the Oval Office
  • Thursday, 20 March, 2025
    Trade SecretsSatellites
    Europe tries to fix its plumbing — and leave Starlink behind

    Many governments outside the US do not want to rely on Elon Musk’s satellite company

    Starlink in Ukraine
  • Monday, 17 March, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Countries hit by Trump tariffs ponder retaliation or negotiation Premium content

    Canada has shown it’s possible to face down threats from Washington

    A steelworker
  • Monday, 10 March, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s coercion descends into chaos Premium content

    The US’s tariff policy evokes bafflement as well as fear

    Donald Trump descends from Air Force One
  • Thursday, 6 March, 2025
    Trade SecretsUS trade
    Trump’s tariffs are America’s own worst enemy

    The White House reprieve on auto levies shows how self-inflicted damage beats retaliation from trading partners

    US President Donald Trump (C) addresses a joint session of the United States Congress
  • Monday, 3 March, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s tariffs loom suddenly through the fog of trade war Premium content

    In the US president’s mind, the trade instruments blur into one another

    The flags of Mexico, Canada and the US blow in the wind
  • Thursday, 27 February, 2025
    The Economics Show podcast33 min listen
    What future for aid and international development? With Minouche Shafik

    The US, UK and others plan big cuts to their aid budgets

  • Thursday, 27 February, 2025
    Trade SecretsJavier Milei
    Argentina’s chainsaw reformer is more orthodox than he looks

    The risk is that President Javier Milei declares victory in his economic programme too early

    FT montage of Javier Milei in front of peso banknotes with a line chart running over them
  • Monday, 24 February, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Satellite rivalries are politicising the world’s economic plumbing Premium content

    Governments are increasingly wary of relying on foreign communication systems

    A low-orbit communication satellite hovers above the Earth
  • Thursday, 20 February, 2025
    Trade SecretsUK economy
    Britain should beware the cult of deregulation

    Unthinking campaigns against ‘red tape’ are not the way to promote growth

    A man and a woman in hard hats and high-visibility vests survey a room in a newly built house
  • Monday, 17 February, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s risible ‘reciprocal’ tariffs Premium content

    The White House is making up rationales for trade policy as it goes along

    US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House as he announces reciprocal tariffs
  • Thursday, 13 February, 2025
    Unhedged Podcast26 min listen
    The other side of trade

    A look at tariffs outside the US

  • Thursday, 13 February, 2025
    Trade SecretsTrade disputes
    Trump fought the trade law, and Trump won

    Neither international nor domestic courts on their own will stop the US president’s destructive tariffs

    Elon Musk, President Donald Trump and JD Vance
  • Tuesday, 11 February, 2025
    Instant InsightBribery and corruption
    Trump is giving a green light to corporate corruption abroad

    Abandoning the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act would not be good business

    Donald Trump
  • Monday, 10 February, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    EU ponders how to respond to a fresh Trump onslaught Premium content

    Brussels can’t do the rapid pre-emptive retaliation that Canada and Mexico threatened

    EU flags wave in the wind as pedestrians walk by its headquarters in Brussels
  • Thursday, 6 February, 2025
    Trade SecretsTrump tariffs
    The world’s exporters search for new customers if Trump cuts off trade

    With China also reducing imports, demand from the voracious American consumer will be hard to replace

    Customers shop for food at a grocery store in Chicago
  • Monday, 3 February, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s cataclysmic damage is going way beyond tariffs Premium content

    The functioning of the US government is facing a systemic crisis

    US President Donald Trump speaks to the press
Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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