From Bretton Woods to Turnberry: How the U.S. Is Rewriting the Global Trade Order

There’s an unspoken rule in international economic history: new global trade orders are born in grand hotels.
In 1944, with World War II still raging, representatives of the Allied nations gathered at the picturesque Bretton Woods resort in New Hampshire to design the postwar economic order — a framework to restore rational trade flows in a fractured world.

The Bretton Woods system formally ended in 1976, but its legacy shaped decades of globalization. Today, however, the world order led by the World Trade Organization (WTO) is showing deep cracks. Founded to regulate trade among its now 166 member nations and promote economic efficiency, the WTO failed to adapt to changing realities. The United States lost industrial jobs and economic security; many other nations failed to achieve needed reforms. The biggest winner? China, with its state-owned enterprises and five-year plans.

Over the past decade, dissatisfaction has boiled over. The current system has not protected the core interests of its members — and across the globe, from Washington to Jakarta, reform is no longer a distant idea; it is an urgent necessity.

A New Chapter at Turnberry

Trump's Trade Representative: Why We Remade the Global Order | Hoover Institution Trump's Trade Representative: Why We Remade the Global Order

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Turnberry resort on Scotland’s coast to sign a landmark agreement. Unlike the vague, consensus-based goals of multilateral institutions, this pact focuses squarely on national interests, establishing a fairer, more balanced framework for trade.

The deal pairs tariff protection with targeted foreign market access negotiations — laying the foundation for a new global trade order.

Under the old system, tariffs were treated almost as a relic — a policy tool to be avoided. In practice, this meant the U.S. abandoned tariff protection for its core manufacturing industries, even as it tore down market barriers and welcomed a flood of foreign goods, services, capital, and labor. Meanwhile, trading partners kept their markets closed to U.S. exports while using subsidies, wage suppression, lax labor and environmental standards, and currency manipulation to fuel exports to America.

This “beggar-thy-neighbor” policy turned the U.S. and a handful of allies into final consumers of goods produced under the lowest possible standards — often at the expense of vulnerable workers abroad and middle-class communities at home.

The Great Imbalance

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For decades, America’s trade partners played this game well, while Wall Street and Washington elites profited by offshoring production. Manufacturing hubs shifted to China, Vietnam, Mexico, and other nations with state support or cheap, unprotected labor.

The result:

Record U.S. trade deficits
Severe damage to industrial capacity and employment
Dangerous reliance on adversarial nations for critical supply chains

In the name of “global consensus,” America sidelined its own economic security. The industries that once created high-wage jobs and drove innovation were hollowed out, leaving towns and workers behind.

From Bretton Woods to the Trump Round

What began at Bretton Woods as a system to rebuild war-torn trade evolved over nine negotiation “rounds.” Early frameworks like the Kennedy and Tokyo Rounds created sensible trade norms. But by the 1994 Uruguay Round — which birthed the WTO — the experiment had grown into a tangled web binding nations in overreach and bureaucracy.

Now, we are witnessing what could be called the “Trump Round.”
On April 2, the President declared a national emergency over the trade deficit and announced new tariffs. This triggered an unprecedented series of bilateral negotiations — from Washington to Geneva, Jeju to Paris, London to Stockholm, and finally Turnberry.

In just months, the U.S. has secured more foreign market access than years of stalled WTO talks ever achieved.

Rebalancing Through Tariffs

Trump threatens new tariffs in bid to reshape trade | Reuters

The new approach is unapologetically strategic:

Tariffs protect domestic industries
Partners gain access to the U.S. market only in exchange for lowering their own barriers and cooperating on economic and security issues

Examples from the latest deals:

Indonesia: cut tariffs on U.S. imports by 99.3%, removed non-tariff barriers, accepted a 19% tariff on exports to the U.S.
South Korea: accepted a 15% tariff and aligned with U.S. auto standards
Vietnam: agreed to a 20% tariff on exports while lowering all barriers to U.S. goods

Most partners have also committed to economic security cooperation to safeguard critical supply chains.

Labor, Environment, and Enforcement

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The new agreements go beyond economics:

Improved labor standards and enforcement to break cycles of unfair competition
Commitments from multiple nations to ban imports produced with forced labor, aligning with U.S. and EU policies
Environmental provisions targeting illegal logging, overfishing, and other exploitative practices

Crucially, enforcement is immediate and direct. Instead of outdated WTO dispute mechanisms, the U.S. will monitor compliance closely — and impose higher tariffs instantly if commitments are violated. Access to the most profitable market in the world is the carrot; tariffs are the stick.

Why This Matters Now

What the World Learned from Donald Trump's Tariff Week | The New Yorker

The WTO requires unanimous agreement to change trade rules — a near impossibility given protectionist members and hostile powers who benefit from America’s industrial decline. The new Turnberry framework bypasses this deadlock.

The scale is staggering:

The EU has pledged $600 billion in U.S. investments
South Korea will invest $350 billion, including in U.S. shipbuilding
These commitments exceed ten times the scale of the post-WWII Marshall Plan
Combined with $1 trillion in U.S. goods purchase agreements, this influx of capital could reestablish U.S. leadership in strategic industries

Defying the Skeptics

Critics note that tariffs haven’t been used this broadly in generations. But the data is clear: economies without protective tools saw manufacturing wealth replaced by finance fees and consulting retainers. Even those who agree on the diagnosis question the urgency or intensity of Trump’s approach.

Yet inaction carries greater risk. Without decisive change, deindustrialization will accelerate. Tariffs, paired with strategic investment, have already shown they can restructure supply chains and revive manufacturing — without causing inflation spikes.

Bretton Woods took over 50 years to evolve into the WTO; the WTO has now held sway for 30 years. The Turnberry system is less than 130 days old — but its architecture is rapidly taking shape.

Conclusion

The Turnberry agreements are not merely trade deals — they are a fundamental rewrite of the global economic order. By tying access to the U.S. market to fair trade practices, labor and environmental standards, and security cooperation, the U.S. is redefining what globalization will look like in the 21st century.

If Bretton Woods rebuilt the world after a war, Turnberry may well be remembered as the moment the world rebuilt trade after the collapse of naïve free trade idealism.