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Alan Beattie

Senior Trade Writer

Alan Beattie writes the Trade Secrets newsletter every Monday and an opinion column each Thursday, covering international trade, globalisation, the intersection of geopolitics and economics and the world financial system.

Based in London, he was previously the FT's international economy editor and world trade editor and has been also been based in Washington and Brussels for the FT. He is the author of False Economy (Penguin, 2009), a popular economic history of the world, and Who's In Charge Here? (Penguin, 2012), an account of governments' mishandling of the global financial crisis. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England.

Email Alan Beattie @alanbeattie  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
  • Monday, 8 July, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    The dangerously simple story about radical populists Premium content

    Open trade and the EU are not (yet) being destroyed by a phalanx of hard-right governments

    Rassemblement National supporter, looking sad, holding a glass of champagne and the French flag
  • Monday, 1 July, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Le Pen brings protectionism home to the French border Premium content

    The cross-party consensus on trade policy in the UK and even the US is absent in France

    Rassemblement National (RN) leader Marine Le Pen, speaking at a podium
  • Friday, 28 June, 2024
    Trade SecretsGlobal trade
    Labour may face a tug of war between European trade and US security

    The gravitational force of the EU economy will pull against the UK’s strategic alliance with Washington

    A woman in a red suit strolls through a pillored atrium as media photographers aim their cameras at her
  • Monday, 24 June, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Big business tries a dangerous dalliance with populist protectionists Premium content

    Cynical short-term calculations are driving corporate support for Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen

    Marine Le Pen, pictured at a press conference, in a red jacket
  • Monday, 17 June, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    EU gambles on diplomatic approach with Chinese electric vehicles Premium content

    Brussels uses calibrated legal action to structure negotiation with Beijing

    Member states’ flags fly outside EU headquarters in Brussels
  • Thursday, 13 June, 2024
    Trade SecretsEU immigration
    The far-right threat that heightens Europe’s immigrant dilemma

    The need for overseas workers forces governments to ever-greater heights of hypocrisy

    Giorgia Meloni posts her voting slip in a ballot box
  • Monday, 10 June, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Europe’s rightward swing won’t knock trade policy off course Premium content

    Populists in European parliament loathe immigration but not trade as such

    President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election on Sunday
  • Thursday, 6 June, 2024
    Trade SecretsUK trade
    Why British trade policy needs to stand still

    The UK should shun any initiative that makes it harder to realign with the EU

    Texas governor Greg Abbott with Kemi Badenoch, the UK trade secretary, in London
  • Monday, 3 June, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Beijing returns fire against Washington and Brussels Premium content

    The EU’s carefully calibrated disputes of the past have become clumsier

    An airport scanning machine manufactured by Nuctech
  • Thursday, 23 May, 2024
    Javier Milei
    Milei’s anarcho-capitalist dream collides with Argentine reality

    Beneath the adolescent showmanship, the president is slowly pursuing orthodox reform

    A neo-classical building in Buenos Aires
  • Monday, 20 May, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Will Chinese auto investment jump Joe Biden’s tariff walls? Premium content

    China’s EV manufacturers looking to produce in Europe and the US will be next stage of trade war game

    Open bonnet on a BYD vehicle
  • Thursday, 16 May, 2024
    Trade SecretsGlobal trade
    The state handouts that get out of control

    There is no effective means of constraining destructive subsidies

    Joe Biden smiles while talking in the White House Rose Garden.
  • Monday, 13 May, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    US is skulking behind EV tariff walls Premium content

    Joe Biden’s new electric vehicle levies are symbol, not substance

    Joe Biden gets out of a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 during a visit to the Detroit Auto Show in 2022
  • Thursday, 9 May, 2024
    Trade SecretsEuropean Commission
    Europe’s new anti-subsidy weapon is powerful but hard to control

    The EU foreign subsidies regulation is looking to score some notable hits

    A Nuctech scanner
  • Tuesday, 7 May, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Xi’s visit stress-tests Macron’s plans for a sovereign Europe Premium content

    France’s drive for ‘strategic autonomy’ must overcome suspicion of Paris within the EU

    Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan, China’s first lady, outside the Élysée Palace in Paris
  • Monday, 29 April, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Autoworkers of the world, unite! (Ish.) Premium content

    US labour unions are using a German supply chain regulation to take on Mercedes

    A worker on a Mercedes production line
  • Thursday, 25 April, 2024
    Trade SecretsEU trade
    The colonialist overtones of EU’s green trade crusade

    Many middle-income countries show reserves of pragmatic tolerance that Europeans do not necessarily deserve

    Indonesian President Suharto signing a new letter of agreement before International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director-General Michel Camdessus
  • Monday, 22 April, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Biden tries a White House reset on climate and trade Premium content

    International co-operation will need the US to tax its own companies’ emissions

    John Podesta, US chief climate diplomat, speaking from a podium
  • Thursday, 18 April, 2024
    Trade SecretsUS Dollar
    The dollar would survive Trump turning currency warrior

    The greenback’s global role has endured shocks from without and within

    Donald Trump holds up a clenched fist in front of a giant US flag
  • Monday, 8 April, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Brussels tests out perhaps its sharpest anti-China tool yet Premium content

    EU’s foreign subsidies regulation has potential radically to restrain Chinese companies

    A Chinese worker tightening a screw
  • Thursday, 4 April, 2024
    Trade SecretsTrade disputes
    The political lessons from Australia’s defiance of China

    Consistency and bipartisanship have helped Canberra resist trade coercion by Beijing

    Anthony Albanese meets Xi Jinping in Beijing. Australia stuck to its geopolitical stance as a strong US ally and China backed down
  • Monday, 25 March, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    EU trade policy serves Ukraine an unappetising menu Premium content

    Restrictions on food imports foreshadow tricky time for Kyiv negotiating entry to bloc

    A Polish farmer and his tractor
  • Thursday, 21 March, 2024
    Trade SecretsEU business regulation
    The global downside of European consumers’ green principles

    Environmental trade restrictions now reflect noisy campaigners more than protectionist farmers

    Men work on a palm oil planation in Malaysia. The cost and difficulty of complying with the EU’s deforestation regulation means large producers are likely to displace small farmers in exporting to the lucrative European  market
  • Monday, 18 March, 2024
    Trade Secrets
    Lie back and think of Pennsylvania Premium content

    US is alienating Japan and EU by mishandling its obsession with swing voters in steel states

    A US flag near the USS steelworks in Braddock, Pennsylvania
  • Thursday, 14 March, 2024
    Trade SecretsShipping
    Suez, Schmuez: how global trade is shrugging off the Houthi attacks

    Blocking cargo ships’ passage through the Red Sea hasn’t noticeably hurt global growth or pushed up inflation

    A laden cargo ship sits in the Suez Canal
Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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