Last year, when we talked to Martin Wolf, the global order seemed like it was being upended after President Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs against nearly every US trading partner. A lot has happened since then. In fact, April 2025 seems almost quaint when compared to 2026 so far, from the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling to the US-Israel war with Iran.

The war’s effect on the world’s economy is at once stunning and utterly strange: even as the prices of major commodities — oil chief among them.