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When Trade Agreements Have a Half-Life of Days
Who today would derive a stable basis for the next few years from a settlement in a trade dispute? The half-life of such agreements now feels like it is measured in days.
There used to be a pattern you could rely on: when the global economy grows, German exports grow with it. A stable relationship since the Second World War. Not any more.
Professor Fabian Lindner set this out clearly at our customer event. German growth was carried by exports for decades. The old US hegemony as a stable frame is history. In its place come multipolarity, protectionism, and “just in case” instead of “just in time”.
For companies that means an announcement out of Washington, an export ban on rare earths from China, or a heatwave straining Europe’s power grids, and yesterday’s plan is waste paper.
The problem is not uncertainty itself. It is that our steering processes are still built for stability. Annual budgets produced through months of alignment. Forecasts that commit to a single number.
The task is not to create the illusion of certainty. It is to make uncertainty manageable.