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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.

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  • Monday, 3 February, 2025
    The Economics Show podcast31 min listen
    Can the WTO stay relevant? With Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

    With global trade under attack from Donald Trump, what role can the WTO play?

  • Thursday, 30 January, 2025
    Trade SecretsForeign aid
    The threat to Aids sufferers shows how far the Republicans have fallen

    An African aid programme created by George W Bush is casually being endangered by Donald Trump

    George W Bush, then US president, with Bono in 2002
  • Monday, 27 January, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    A farcical Colombian chapter in Trump’s trade war Premium content

    A pointless spat over deportation flights shows the destructive futility ahead

    Donald Trump and Gustavo Petro
  • Thursday, 23 January, 2025
    Trade SecretsProtectionism
    How to stop Donald Trump exporting trade wars

    Distortions from US tariffs need not be disastrous

    US President Donald Trump speaks during an inauguration ceremony
  • Monday, 20 January, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Richard Nixon’s third term on trade starts today Premium content

    Weirdly, it will be a relief if Trump’s tariffs are no higher than Tricky Dick’s

    Gerald Ford and House Speaker Carl Albert listen to President Richard Nixon deliver his State of the Union address
  • Thursday, 16 January, 2025
    Trade SecretsForeign exchange
    The alarming contradictions awaiting Donald Trump’s dollar

    Big tax cuts and tariff hikes will prevent any new Plaza Accord to manage currencies

    President elect Donald Trump and Scott Bessent
  • Monday, 13 January, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s trade coercion will harm the US and its allies Premium content

    Greenland gambit suggests the country is now a threat to as much as a guarantor of security

    A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr on a runway in Nuuk, Greenland
  • Thursday, 9 January, 2025
    Trade SecretsUS foreign policy
    Trump has limited powers to fight an economic cold war

    The new president is not the man to shore up the US ‘economic security state’

    US President-elect Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping
  • Monday, 6 January, 2025
    Trade Secrets
    The day friendshoring died Premium content

    Joe Biden blocking Nippon Steel’s bid for US Steel is a sad end for an unloved idea

    US President Joe Biden
  • Tuesday, 31 December, 2024
    US trade
    Year in a word: Tariff

    The incoming Trump administration is set to dust down a weapon from a bygone era

    Montage image of tiles spelling ‘tariff’, a container ship, and Donald Trump
  • Monday, 30 December, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Weathering the blustery trade winds of 2024 Premium content

    How Trade Secrets covered the events of the year just gone

    US president-elect Donald Trump dances during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest
  • Thursday, 19 December, 2024
    Trade SecretsGlobal trade
    The wondrous gift of open trade is given

    Flexible economies and free markets have kept globalisation going this year

    Shelves of olive oil at a Mercadona SA supermarket
  • Monday, 16 December, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    The national security nasties Biden will leave behind Premium content

    The US has failed to reconcile open trade and homeland protection

    Montage of Joe Biden and Donald Trump behind the white house
  • Thursday, 12 December, 2024
    Trade SecretsGlobal trade
    The state intervention that’s not destroying trade

    Governments are experimenting with industrial policy but tariffs are staying low

    Arial view of different coloured containers on a container ship
  • Monday, 9 December, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    The endangered Mercosaurus roars back to life Premium content

    Europe and South America revive a dormant deal

    French farmers spell out ‘Mercosur’ with signs on a road near Angouleme as part of their protest against the trade deal
  • Thursday, 5 December, 2024
    Trade SecretsUS trade
    Tariff Man’s superpowers are weaker than he thinks

    Donald Trump’s obsession with import taxes belies their limited effects

    Justin Trudeau with Donald Trump in 2017. If Trump really does favour tariffs, he will find them a clumsy and often ineffective way of asserting US power
  • Monday, 2 December, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Greatest threat to Trump’s dollar is Trump himself Premium content

    The incoming US president’s rambling warning to the Brics countries makes no sense

    Donald Trump
  • Thursday, 28 November, 2024
    Trade SecretsUS trade
    The contradictions of Trumponomics over tariffs lie exposed

    This week is a sobering reminder of the uncertainties of US policy to come

    Kevin Hassett speaks at a podium while Donald Trump stands next to him
  • Tuesday, 26 November, 2024
    US trade
    How to deal with Trump’s tariff threats

    Canada, Mexico and China have options to avoid a trade war

    Montage of Donald Trump and the flags of China, Canada and Mexico
  • Monday, 25 November, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    The climate cash that’s not going to come Premium content

    Don’t believe COP promises or obsess about Trump palace politics

    Activists hold a sign saying: ‘Global north: pay up for public finance’
  • Thursday, 21 November, 2024
    Renewable energy
    The global green transition will survive Trump

    Higher borrowing costs from tariffs and tax cuts will be the US’s main impact on carbon-saving investment worldwide

    An employee charges a BYD electric vehicle at a charging station in Shenzhen, China
  • Monday, 18 November, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Trump’s trade plans, ranked from easiest to hardest to execute Premium content

    It’s much easier to use unilateral tariffs than pass legislation or agree preferential trade deals

    Donald Trump gestures in front of a political display board that reads ‘Trump will fix it!’
  • Thursday, 14 November, 2024
    Global Economy
    Q&A: Experts answered your questions on trade and markets in the Trump era

    FT journalists responded to readers’ queries on how the global economy might change under the incoming president

    Montage of Alan Beattie, Brooke Masters and Andy Bounds
  • Thursday, 14 November, 2024
    Trade SecretsDonald Trump
    A crumbling system of trade rules awaits Trump’s wrecking ball

    The new administration confronts a WTO already undermined by long-standing US disapproval

    President Donald Trump, joined by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer
  • Monday, 11 November, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    How the Democrats’ worker-centred trade policy failed Premium content

    Taking dictation from the labour unions brought economic damage for little political gain

    A man in a baseball cap stands behind others as Joe Biden gives an address as vice-president in 2015
Previous page You are on page 2 Next page

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