As I discovered then, global problems need international responses. By working together, we can protect jobs and living standardsThis is the first in a two part series on the global response to Donald Trump’s tariffsNo more than a narrow window of opportunity remains if we are to prevent an unnecessary global recession. As China and the US decouple, disruptive trade wars are intensifying and threaten to descend into currency wars; import, export, investment and technology bans; and financial fire sales that will destroy millions of jobs worldwide. It seems barely credible that the world is being brought to its knees by one economy, outside of which live 96% of the population, who produce 84% of the world’s manufactured goods. But even though US officials have previously talked of a tariff policy of “escalate to de-escalate”, Donald Trump’s aim is to force manufacturing back to the US, and his 90-day relaxation of some tariffs does not mean he intends to defuse the crisis.On Monday, Keir Starmer warned that the world will never be the same again, and reminded us that “attempting to manage crises without fundamental change just leads to managed decline”. He is right. As I learned in the financial crisis of 2008, global problems require globally coordinated solutions. We need a bold, international response that measures up to the scale of the em