My View on Trade in Goods and Services

I’m not an economist, but in high school, I was a humanities student dreaming of becoming a lawyer and political economist. I wanted to become a legislator someday. I’ve always been interested in how politics shapes the economy, and how economic systems in turn shape politics. I wanted to understand how countries grow, how people trade, and what makes economies rise or fall.

My father was a businessman. He bought and sold goods across borders and used to talk about how hard it was to trade within Africa. He complained about paperwork, taxes, long delays, and bribes. I didn’t fully understand then, but once I began studying economics in school, it started to make sense.

In those classes, I learned about the real barriers to regional trade: protectionist policies, high tariffs, poor infrastructure, and overdependence on exporting raw goods. These factors made it hard for African countries to trade with each other. So when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) officially launched in 2019, I felt proud. It felt like a step in the right direction, a chance to make trade easier across the continent and maybe one day help people like my dad grow their businesses.

But that same year, my country closed its land borders.

The president at the time said it was to stop food smuggling and help local farmers. They banned access to foreign exchange for dozens of imported items to promote domestic production. But it didn’t work as intended. Prices rose. Inflation jumped from 11 percent in August 2019 to more than 15 percent by the end of 2020. Everyday items like rice, tomatoes, and onions became more expensive. People who lived along the border lost their livelihoods. It ended up hurting the very people it was supposed to help. And we were the last country to even sign on to AfCFTA. Just as the rest of the continent was trying to move forward, we pulled back.

That experience shaped how I think about trade.

I still believe in protecting local industries, especially in key sectors. But I don’t think the answer is to shut others out. I believe in open trade with guardrails. What we need is to support our local businesses so they can compete on a global scale, not isolate them and expect growth to happen in a vacuum. Protectionism, when overdone, can end up hurting the very people it's supposed to protect.

Recently, I’ve been following the new tariff plans in the U.S. In April 2025, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs: a flat 10 percent on all imports, with even higher rates for countries running large trade surpluses with the U.S. He declared a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), arguing that persistent trade deficits had hollowed out American manufacturing and made the country too reliant on foreign supply chains.

According to Bloomberg, the S&P 500 lost around $2.5 trillion in a single day after the announcement. Companies that rely on global manufacturing such as Apple, Nike, Target, and others saw their stock prices drop sharply. Economists from JPMorgan warned that the tariffs could increase inflation by 1.5 percent, reduce household incomes, and even push the economy toward recession. UBS also said there’s a growing risk the U.S. could enter a bear market if this escalates.

Supporters of the tariffs say they are long overdue. The White House fact sheet argues that countries like China, India, and Brazil impose much higher tariffs on American goods, often over 50 or 70 percent, while the U.S. charges little or nothing in return. To them, this move is about fairness. On the surface, it feels like the Golden Rule of trade: treat us how we treat you.

But I can’t help thinking about the unintended consequences.

Even if the goal is to bring manufacturing back home, the cost of getting there might be high. And not just in dollars, but in jobs, consumer confidence, and the stability of global trade itself. Tariffs can work in very specific cases, but when used like a blunt tool, they can backfire. As one analyst from Deutsche Bank put it, this strategy may “raise serious concerns about policy credibility” because it feels reactive and unpredictable.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do think we should ask better questions. What is the actual goal of our trade policy? Are we building for the future or protecting the past? Are we supporting innovation and resilience or just playing defense?

In Africa, I saw firsthand how bad trade policy can hurt ordinary people. In the U.S., I’m watching how complex and risky it is to reset a global economic order overnight. Somewhere in between, there has to be a better way that protects local industries without turning away from the rest of the world.

Trade isn’t just about goods crossing borders. It’s about values, opportunities, and livelihoods. I still believe in the power of trade to uplift people. But only if we do it wisely.

Part of the reason I cared so much about political economy, why I paid attention in high school government and economics class, and why I still do, is because politics and the economy are deeply connected. Politics creates and shapes the economy, just as economic power and relationships shape political decisions. You can't really separate the two.

I believed that problems like this weren’t unsolvable. They just needed institutions with real power and the will to act. That belief shaped what I wrote in my 0x41434f code: Strengthen the Legislative Branch.. Most governance failures, I’ve come to believe, happen not because people don’t know what’s wrong, but because the institutions responsible for fixing things are either sidelined or too weak to make a difference.

In Nigeria, for example, trade and customs duties fall under the exclusive legislative list in the constitution. The National Assembly is supposed to oversee tariffs, trade agreements, and duties. But in reality, decisions like how much money to borrow or whether to adjust customs duties often bypass the legislature entirely.

The same dynamic exists in the U.S. Constitution. Article I says Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes and tariffs. But over the years, that power has been handed off to the president through various laws like the IEEPA which lets the president declare a national emergency and impose tariffs without Congress having to pass a new law. Courts have mostly upheld this system, although some justices and legal scholars are now questioning whether too much power has shifted to the executive.

To me, these aren’t just legal debates. They are about how we make decisions that affect millions of lives. If we want smarter trade policy, we need stronger legislatures. We need lawmakers who write the rules, not just react to them. Whether it's Nigeria or the U.S., we can't keep shaping economies through executive orders alone.

That’s one of the reasons I still think about that old dream. Not because I want power, but because I believe good laws come from good process. And good process requires strong institutions that are allowed to do their job.