SUCH is the ephemerality of literary fame that references to Rudyard Kipling are distinctly unfashionable in polite company these days. The overt white supremacy is often not so much the subtext as the text itself.

So attendees at Singapore Shipping Week might have been slightly surprised to hear a prominent Asian politician from a former British colony allude to the archimperialist Edwardian man of letters in his speech at the opening gathering on Monday.

Former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong’s timely warning about “the law of the jungle” — a phrase coined by Kipling in The Jungle Book — sounded the alarm to an industry that is currently getting it every which way from developments in international politics.

To give the relevant quote in full: “Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, and the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.”

Several of the big stories in Lloyd’s List take on the themes Lee went on to develop. Populism and protectionism pose a grave threat to free trade, and intensifying great power rivalry could pave the way to further military conflict.

The most immediate issue is the Trump administration’s decision to impose a 25% tariff on cars imported into the US from the middle of next week. That amounts to around half the cars sold in the US market.

Most media attention has naturally concentrated on the impact this policy will have on motor manufacturers in the first instance, and thereafter the collateral damage to stock markets.

But operators of vehicle carriers were also hit for six. Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Höegh Autoliners both saw their share prices take a fall in Oslo.

As Lee pointed out, tariffs are a guaranteed means to ratchet up tensions between states. Many victims can be expected to reciprocate, with massive implications for global trade flows and incalculable consequences for the supply chains on which world trade depends.

Another unfortunate move from Washington is the proposal to levy port fees of up to $1m per call on Chinese-built vessels.

Again, this will hurt everybody. But specially damaged will be the emerging economies of the Caribbean, which are hugely dependent on shortsea runs from US ports, with Chinese tonnage predominating.

The impost could put $2,000 per teu on the cost of each box carried on a 500 teu feeder, a burden the islands simply cannot sustain.

Trump is also seeking to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. While details remain scant, the package seems to include measures to resurrect the Black Sea Initiative, the lapsed mechanism designed to ensure safe navigation in the region.

That should be good news for grain exports from beleaguered Ukraine. It isn’t really. As one analyst pointed out, Kyiv had already effectively broken the Kremlin’s attempt at a maritime blockade and doesn’t need a disadvantageous deal to keep its Black Sea ports open.

As if shipowners don’t have enough to worry about right now, a major conference of marine insurers last Friday also reflected on what might happen in the Taiwan Strait if China opts for a more aggressive approach in its efforts to secure reunification with Taiwan.

A full-scale invasion in a few years’ time is a widely canvassed scenario. But push doesn’t have to come to shove to give war risk underwriters the jitters.

The ongoing standoff has already generated several maritime incidents. One of the speakers raised the prospect of a collision between a military boat and a laden tanker leading to a major oil spill. That’s obviously a hypothetical, but hardly a far-fetched one.

For the shipping industry, this is clearly a good time to recall an ancient admonition of Pericles: just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.

We are not quite at the stage of wolf eat wolf, but we are long past dog eat dog. Perhaps we can collectively find comfort in a paraphrase of Kipling’s most famous — if decidedly kitsch — poem.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you’ll be a shipping chief executive, my son.