Charting six major trends to keep watching in 2026

Not quite so tarrifying? For the US economy in 2025, perhaps no moment stands more memorable than Donald Trump unveiling his big board of tariffs on April 2. Although the “Liberation Day” announcement might have come the day after April Fools, the levies slapped on America’s largest trading partners — as well as some of its smallest — were no joke. They upended a multi-decade trend of lower trade barriers; took America’s trade-weighted average import tariff to over 25%, its highest level in a century; and blew a multi-trillion dollar hole in the stock market as economists got doomy and…