WOE be to anyone forecasting short-term shipping markets. Donald Trump, agent of chaos, is scrambling the global trade equation on a daily, at times hourly, basis.

Why he’s doing this depends on which end of the political spectrum you’re on. Trump’s most fervent supporters see him as a patriotic player of four-dimensional chess, negotiating a path to America’s “Golden Age”. His fiercest critics dismiss him as a belligerent egomaniacal shyster who couldn’t win a round of noughts and crosses.

The increasingly surreal tariff drama involving Mexico and Canada — America’s first- and third-largest import sources — does not feel like a game of four-dimensional chess.

Trump initially threatened 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods, then dropped it to 10% for Canadian energy, then delayed them for a month at the last minute, then put the tariffs on this Tuesday, then took them off for goods covered under the existing trade agreement on Thursday, but promised to put them all back on again, definitely this time, starting April 2 (although this may change at some point in the next few minutes).

Presenters at the TPM25 conference in Long Beach, California, couldn’t update their slide decks fast enough to keep up with this week’s news flow.

One takeaway from America’s largest annual gathering of cargo shippers: You cannot predict what will happen in the short term amid the Trump tariff maelstrom, so don’t bother trying.

The more valuable insights at TPM25 were about the long view of global trade. This long-term perspective is particularly relevant to shipowners, who are in the business of signing multi-year charter contracts and owning very expensive assets that depreciate over 20 years.

TPM25 speakers addressed two big-picture questions that will steer shipping markets in the coming decades. Will the US ultimately become more isolated and less relevant in global goods trades, forcing exporters to find new buyers in the years ahead? And will the US withdraw its global security guarantees, leading to more wars and supply chain disruptions in the future?

The future of global trade

Lars Jensen, founder of Vespucci Maritime, sees the US retreating over the long term, and other countries turning to more dependable buyers for their goods exports, a shift that would have major shipping consequences.

“If you look to the next 10 to 20 years down the line, I think we’re already at the point of no return. What I think is going to happen is that most countries will come to the realisation that the US is not a trustworthy partner. It’s as simple as that. Once that realisation has sunk in, the next question is whether this is just four years — whether this is just temporary.

“And it’s not, because we’ve already had Trump 1.0 and now we Trump 2.0 and there’s no guarantee on what comes afterwards.

“The comparison I tend to use is: If we’re in the business world and I have a client that is my largest client and without that client I’d otherwise go bankrupt, and suddenly he starts behaving like an A-hole, do I like that customer? No, I do not. But he’s my largest customer and without him I’d go bankrupt, so, yes, I will play nice. I will keep him as my customer.

“And why do I do that? Because I can build up my customer portfolio with everybody else over time, until I get to the point where I can tell that guy over here: ‘Sorry, I’m not going to do business with you anymore.’

“That is the direction I see the world is going to take in the next 10-20 years. We’re going to end up with a US that is very isolated, which definitely seems to be where this administration wants to end up, and that will have all sorts of consequences. And I think we’re already at that point. This is the train that has been set in motion.”

Pete Mento, director of customs and trade services at DSV, offered a much more sympathetic view of Trump’s tariffs, explaining the long-term policy rationale that’s driving them.

“We are the world’s largest single economy. No other economy on planet Earth has people who spend more money they don’t have on crap they don’t need to impress people they don’t like in the first place,” he said.

“That consumption policy, and the way we built our economy, has allowed a number of other economies to lift themselves out of financial destitution. The economy in the United States drives a lot of growth in other parts of the world, and because of that, it gives us unprecedented abilities to push trade policy.

“But we are losing that position in the world. A lot has to do with population growth. Every woman in America has to have 2.1 children for us to overcome the death statistics, and right now we’re averaging about 1.6. We’re not making enough Americans.

“So, a lot of our policy is being driven by the fact that we have a limited time to be the world’s largest economy. We have to get policies in place now for the next 100 years. By trying to get the most positive outcome from trade policy now, locking it in gives us time to enjoy those benefits while we basically dwindle into obscurity.”

The counterargument to this policy justification is that any new US trade agreements Trump bullies into force may not be locked in for long — let alone 100 years — given that Trump’s tariff strategy reneges on the trade agreements America previously signed.

“As of today, the US has 14 different free trade agreements, including one with Mexico and Canada,” said Jensen. “I would not expect any of them to survive this year.”

If so, why would America’s trading partners honour agreements down the road, agreements they made under duress, after they’ve had time to find new trading routes and are not as beholden to that big and untrustworthy business client they don’t really like?

The future of global security

On the other big-picture topic at TPM25 — America’s role as global security provider — Jensen said, “Trump’s approach to the Ukraine war has sent a very, very clear message that if you are an ally of the US, there is no guarantee that the US will come to your aid unless you pay for it.

“Will the US come to the aid of Taiwan? Will it come to the aid of the Philippines? Or anyone else out there? That is more of an open question than it used to be.”

John Bolton, former US national security adviser and ambassador to the UN, said, “The Chinese government is watching what happens in Ukraine very closely, and if the US and the West as a whole don’t stand up against the unprovoked aggression of the Russians, it will send a strong signal to China.

“A weaker America leads to a more unstable world, a more chaotic world. If we pull back from the world, disorder will spread. That may not impair shipping on international waters immediately, but it will have an incredible ripple effect as the order breaks down all across the globe.”

But Bolton, unlike Jensen, does not believe the US has passed the point of no return. “I don’t think it’s inevitable that we will retreat further, but to prevent that from happening, people have to speak up.”