Highlights

• Hungarian economists warn that Trump's 2025 tariff blitz marks the end of hyper-globalization, shifting trade toward geoeconomic competition where policies align with national security over market efficiency.
• China's dominance of 60-80% of global rare earth supply, 40% of science degrees, and one-third of IT engineers gives Beijing strategic leverage as supply chains re-regionalize under tariff pressures.
• Rising sovereign debt and fiscal strain are driving monetary reform experiments—CBDCs, yield-curve control, and central bank gold accumulation—as governments finance industrial policy in the new era.

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In a July 2025 roundtable hosted by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and the Hungarian Economic Association (MKT), moderated by Pál Péter Kolozsi of the Government Debt Management Agency, leading economists warned that Donald Trump’s revived tariff war is redrawing the world’s financial and industrial map. The event—titled “Trump’s Tariff Policy and the Reshaping of the World Order: The End of Orthodoxy or the Beginning of the New Normal?”—was summarized in the Financial and Economic Review (Vol. 24, Issue 3, Sept 2025).

Panelists, including Gyula Pleschinger, Zoltán Pogátsa, Géza Sebestyén, and Barnabás Virág, argued that Trump’s 2025 tariff blitz, launched on April 2 and briefly suspended in July, has triggered a global chain reaction: China’s export restrictions on rare earths and digital retaliation from Canada and others mark a shift from open markets toward a new age of geoeconomic competition.

The End of “Hyper-Globalization”

Speakers agreed that the post-1947 era of declining tariffs and expanding free trade has ended. What follows may not be protectionism per se—but a selective decoupling of strategic sectors. As Pleschinger observed, U.S. policy now grants preferential tariffs to allies and punitive tariffs to rivals, signaling an era in which trade aligns with national security.

Sebestyén linked this trend to a broader “security-driven capitalism,” in which investment decisions follow geopolitical logic rather than market efficiency—a pattern reminiscent of the 1980s U.S.–Japan rivalry.

The Rare Earths Factor

For Rare Earth Exchanges readers, Deputy Central Bank Governor Barnabás Virág’s remarks hit closest to home: “_The outcome of the U.S.–China rivalry will depend on who controls scarce resources—rare earth metals, human capital, and data._”

He cited China’s commanding position—60–80 percent of global rare earth supply, 40 percent of science degrees, and one-third of the world’s IT engineers. These asymmetries, he warned, give Beijing a formidable advantage as supply chains re-regionalize under tariff and security pressures.

Fiscal Strains and Monetary Shifts

Panelists linked rising tariffs to mounting fiscal and monetary fragility. Sovereign debt in advanced economies has climbed from roughly 40 percent of GDP in the 1970s to over 110 percent today, while debt-service costs now exceed defense spending in many nations.

Virág and Pogátsa both suggested that monetary reform—central-bank digital currencies, yield-curve control, and targeted credit systems—may define the next decade, as governments seek to finance industrial policy without triggering crises.

Gold, too, is quietly re-entering the monetary conversation, as central banks diversify away from the dollar—what Pogátsa called “a paradigm shift akin to the tariff war itself.”

Limitations and Context

The roundtable’s conclusions, while provocative, reflect a Central European vantage point—a region dependent on both Western capital and Eastern markets. The emphasis on sovereignty and “monetary nationalism” may overstate near-term fragmentation, yet the trajectory is unmistakable: trade and finance are no longer neutral.

Conclusion

From Budapest’s policy halls to Washington’s tariff tables, a new world order is taking shape—one defined by controlled supply chains, resource nationalism, and financial experimentation. For rare earth investors and industrial planners, the takeaway is clear: geopolitics now shapes the periodic table.

Citation: Kolozsi, Pál Péter (2025). “Report on the Roundtable Talk: Trump’s Tariff Policy and the Reshaping of the World Order – The End of Orthodoxy or the Beginning of the New Normal?” Financial and Economic Review, Vol. 24 (3): 141–146.

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