Can Essential Trade Survive Distruptions?

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Singapore and New Zealand signed what's being called the world's first legally binding agreement on trade in essential goods ATS in response to the Strait of Hormuz crisis. There have been global supply crises in the past, but why do you think an arrangement of this nature hasn't been made before?

[00:00:16]So, let's start with the world before Trump 2.0. So, in that world, there was tacit restraint among trading nations.

[00:00:26]So, countries did refrain from taking overtly protectionist and they also refrained from blatantly going against the rules-based order.

[00:00:36]It wasn't perfect, but there was these practices by countries in general.

[00:00:42]And and during the Trump administration, this belief has been shaken because major economies through, for example, Trump tariffs is a situation where a major economy is now using blunt trade tools and aggressively and openly. Second, you see the situation with the Strait of Hormuz.

[00:01:04]And that one is a physical supply chains disruption and it it's creating a situation where where the beliefs or the norms that countries had on on what they could rely their trading partners to do or not to do has been shaken, which is why countries like Singapore and New Zealand see the the need to codify practices that are seen to be good practices into their trade agreements.