2025-04-18
26 分钟This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
Hello and welcome to World Business Report here on the BBC World Service.
I'm Rahul Tandon.
It's one of those days where lots happening in the global economies and big stories we could have had decided to start the program by talking about a crucial decision involving Google and the growing spat between the man who runs the world's most important central bank,
Jerome Powell, and the man who runs the world's largest economy, Donald Trump.
But we have decided that we're going to start by talking about global trade once again,
because Donald Trump says he's 100% sure that he'll strike a trade deal with the European Union.
It comes as the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christina Georgieva said global trade uncertainty,
which of course comes from Donald Trump's tariffs, is off the charts.
Her warnings of a downturn echo those of the head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell.
Ms Georgieva said economic growth would suffer.
Ultimately, trade is like water.
When countries put an obstacle in the form of tariff and non-tariff barriers, the flow diverts.
Some sectors in some countries may be flooded by cheap imports.
Others may see shortages.
Our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession.
So that reference to water got us thinking and we thought let's look at the issue of global trade by looking at it through the lens of the shipping industry.
Maria Cordero is CEO of Long Beach Port, which currently lays claim to being the busiest port in the United States.
Lots of trade coming in and out of China.
He told me they'd been seeing record numbers this year already ahead though of that tariff implementation.