Could Trump’s Tariffs Result in a Playbook for Transforming Global Sustainability?
- Mark Coleman
- Apr 7
- 9 min read
Global Trade and Financial Skies are Falling, but is there a Silver Lining?
The global trade war triggered by the Trump Administration’s tariffs has financial markets in a dizzying state of freefall. As stock prices tumble, financial analysts scour business sectors for short-term economic winners and losers. Meanwhile, everyday citizens and consumers around the world anxiously wait for more data and information to let them know just what the poorly executed attempt to rebalance global trade will mean for their livelihoods.
Calibrating the global economy through a U.S.-centric mandate to the world is a heavy-handed and high-risk tactic to transform the global economy. Conceptually, the idea of having a level global economic playing field is sensible. However, dismantling decades of post-World War global economic policy with a sweeping tariff is fraught with significant geo-political, market, and supply chain risk. There is a probability that the Trump Administration’s tariffs result in an all-out global trade war, or worse, global recession.
In the short-term, the Trump tariff policy will raise the cost of everyday needs and goods including food, clothing, transportation, electronics and appliances, and pharmaceuticals. Further, the brunt of the financial burden will be felt by lower-and-moderate income households that are already financially vulnerable, living on a fixed income and budget.
Returfing the Global Economic Playing Field
From a global sustainability perspective, it will be interesting to see how the Trump tariffs play out. Should the intention behind the tariffs result in rebalancing global trade, the implications for optimizing sustainable supply chains could be substantial. This outcome is highly unlikely however, as China and other nations place heavy retaliatory tariffs back on the U.S.
The global trade chess game is complex, and its longstanding social and environmental impacts are largely unsustainable. Apple iPhones are manufactured in China and India and shipped around the world. Agriculture commodities such as bananas, avocados, beef, rice, wine, and produce of all kinds are shipped, often thousands of miles, to reach consumer markets. For example, FIJI Water[i], touted for its ancient artesian aquifer and marketed as a premium bottled water brand has, for nearly two decades, become a posterchild of unsustainable production and consumption.
In a world where water scarcity, climate risk, cultural heritage, and protection of ecosystems are paramount - FIJI Water finds itself being ridiculed and challenged. The company is scrutinized for its labor standards, plastic bottle waste, over-consumption of Fiji’s aquifer, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions tied to global shipment of its product from Fiji to consumer markets. FIJI Water is illustrative of the thousands of global companies that have built financially lucrative businesses by profiteering from the exploitation of natural resources and native peoples and lands.
Free enterprise has long mastered the art of generating financial wealth within the guardrails of global trade. However, the pending trade war will upend decades of entrenched power and rules that defined the playing field for global business to make money. As the playing field gets returfed, as the rules get redefined, and as power is redistributed, the global market will transform. But where the global transformation leads is one of the big questions.
Where do we go from here? Is Global [Sustainable] Trade Plausible or Possible?
All consumer segments - automobiles, electronics and appliances, pharmaceuticals, and clothing have been largely dependent upon a global trade system of rules and power that incentivizes lower-cost production of these goods while reinforcing an intricate global supply chain. Subsequently, the global economy has manifested a very large energy footprint in crisscrossing consumer goods between producers and consumers, hence our reliance on and fascination for oil. Global energy production and use as well as mass consumption of consumer goods have risen sharply since the end of the World Wars. Without questions, the rules and power structure that have defined the global economy over the past eighty years have had a direct toll on social, economic, and environmental externalities tied to public health and the quality of our air, water, and environment.
The global consumer-based economy is valued at more than $45 trillion annually[ii]. The U.S. represents the largest consumer spender in the world followed by Europe, China, Japan and India. But even at its gargantuan financial scale, the global economy has been neither optimized nor equitable. Arguably, the global economy has not holistically resulted in delivering a better quality of life, resulting in greater peace and prosperity, or the equitable distribution of resources and wealth for all peoples throughout the world. The fact remains, much of the world, billions upon billions of people, families and children, remain poor. Hundreds of millions of people are living in extreme poverty. According to the World Economic Forum, greater than 60% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 per day.[iii] And, according to the World Bank, an estimated 700 million people in the world live in extreme poverty, characterized as living on less than $2.15 per day.[iv]
In the wake of a bustling global economy that generates financial wealth for a few, there have been devastating environmental, social, and economic externalities that negatively impact billions of people. Indicators of planetary health including ecosystem degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, desertification of soils, solid and hazardous waste, poor air quality, affordable housing, and contaminated water have been in decline for decades and have been deteriorating more rapidly in recent years. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Living Planet Report,[v] between 1970 and 2020, the size of wildlife populations plummeted by 73% on average.
For example, the Living Planet Report states, “numbers of Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon dropped 88% from 1970 to 2022, fluctuating from year to year. The migratory route for this endangered population has been impacted by dams, which block access to their historical spawning habitat…Climate change is a major threat, and their survival now depends on the release of cold water from the upstream dams.” As further observed and noted in the WWF Report, the most significant declines in nature have been observed in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia and the Pacific regions.
Our natural world is a complex system. Human exploration and exploitation of the natural world has undoubtedly disrupted the functioning of the natural world. Scientists have long been observing, measuring, and quantifying changes to the planet’s climate and ecosystems. While it has been inconvenient for some factions of global society to accept the responsibility humans have on protecting and conserving the environment; our society is now coming head-to-head with the convergence of economic and environmental limits. The continued unfettered consumption of natural resources is unsustainable. The collapse of ecosystems and disruption of natural systems are being observed and are impacting our global trade. Whether we want to put a label such as sustainability or innovation on it or not, all planetary signals are pointing humans toward a path of adaptation. Front and center will be a calibration of how the economy can adapt to planetary signals, and align with principles for planet pragmatism, something I define in my forthcoming book, “Planet Pragmatism: Common Sense for the Common Good – A Playbook for Principled Prosperity.”
Although Trump’s tariffs are not intentionally focused on global sustainability, an unintended consequence of their enforcement may ultimately result in deglobalization and deconsumption. Subsequently, some regions of the world may experience short-term and/or periodic reductions in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, consumer production of waste, among other environmental risks. As consumers face the reality of higher priced goods, once fluid global supply chains will shift, impacting the price, availability, and quality of consumer products. As a result, the global economy and consumer behavior will undoubtedly evolve. Economic and supply pressures may, in the short-term, result in a net reduction of consumerism, as global supply chains realign for efficiency and profitability. For some consumer goods, supply and availability may also decline, and coupled with price sensitivity, may also result in a precipitous drop in consumer demand.
The inflationary environment of the past few years has mainstreamed deconsumption among consumers, particularly in developed countries. Since 2020 France has, for example, experienced a shift away from a consumptive toward a deconsumption society. This is a significant trend particularly considering that consumer spending represents over half of France’s gross domestic product (GDP), and over 80% of household budgets. In France’s case, numerous socio-economic factors have contributed toward the country’s slowing consumption of goods including an “aging population, a rise in forced frugality, the saturation of material needs, and a growing questioning of the consumer society.[vi]”
Plagued by rising prices, stagnant wages, and an uncertain economic outlook, consumers have self-selected to embrace deconsumption as tool within their planet pragmatism playbook. Through proactive deconsumption, consumers choose to focus more on buying less material possessions, prioritizing life experiences over the acquisition of more stuff, purchasing alternative or sustainable products when they do need to consume, embracing the borrowing and sharing economy, and generally living a more minimalist lifestyle.
Characterized as a countermovement to consumption, deconsumption delivers the following benefits to consumers and society: reduced resource consumption (environmental sustainability), less financial debt (financial freedom), lower levels of anxiety and stress (increased well-being), and support for equitable distribution of resources and ethical and fair labor standards (social justice).
Beyond Trump and Tariffs: Planet Prosperity is within Our Collective Grasp
Global leaders and everyday citizens are now absorbing the blow of Trump’s tariffs. After days of market freefall, some financial indexes are on the brink of Bear Market territory. As world leaders, financial markets, and citizens try to navigate change, this may represent a time for pause, reflection, restraint, and innovation. This global economic moment, painful and uncharacteristically callous, might just actually represent a once in a generation time to rebalance global trade not only in economic terms, but in terms of planet pragmatism, that is – redefining trade in a manner that embraces principles of planet prosperity, where quality of life is defined and pursued in-step with dignity and respect for all of the world’s peoples, cultures, religions, and ecosystems.
Trump’s directives are pushing financial markets into a survival of the financial fittest hunger game. While Trump is most concerned about ‘winning,’ the narrative for the rest of us carries far greater nuance and consequence. At stake is our financial fate and collective freedom to pursue and attain a more prosperous future. This begs the questions:
What if the world made this moment not about Trump, but about how nation states, geographic regions, global business, and everyday citizens and consumers can collaborate to redefine prosperity in a manner that celebrates our diversity and enhances our relationships with each other and the natural world?
What if this was a moment for us to not suffer economically under the demands of one individual, but to rise up to better align our values, make more efficient use of our vast resources, and combine our collective wisdom and intellect with common sense for the common good of humanity?
Let’s not waste this moment on finger pointing, name calling, and misplaced hatred. Rest assured, there will be plenty of that happening without our participation. But let us not be complicit by sitting silent during these tumultuous times. For this is a moment of high economic risk and political volatility which is forcing change; but, this moment is also giving rise to a profound opportunity for humanity to come together. Let’s rise above the rhetoric and redefine wealth in terms of people and planet prosperity so that we and our children can pursue a more prosperous future while we live a high quality of life today.
[i] Nguyen, Ryan Mikeala. March 10, 2021. New University, University of California, Irvine. “The Dark Secret of FIJI Water.” https://newuniversity.org/2021/03/10/the-dark-secret-of-fiji-water/
[ii] Source: Wikipedia. Accessed April 3, 2025. ‘List of Largest Consumer Markets.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_markets
[iii] Source: World Economic Forum. January 17, 2022. “How can we leave widespread poverty behind?” https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/01/history-of-global-poverty-reduction/
[iv] Source: World Bank. Poverty Overview. “Global poverty reduction has slowed to a near standstill, with 2020-2030 set to be a lost decade. 8.5 percent of the global population – almost 700 million people – live today on less than $2.15 per day, the extreme poverty line relevant for low-income countries. Three-quarters of all people in extreme poverty live in Sub-Saharan Africa or in fragile and conflict-affected countries.” https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
[v] World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report, 2024. https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-GB/
[vi] Cécile Désaunay, “Welcome to the Age of Deconsumption”, Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 26 | 2024, Online since 10 August 2024, connection on 04 March 2025. URL: http:// journals.openedition.org/factsreports/7423
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