The Quiet Tariff Retreat, Germany's China Rethink and Banque Syz CIO on Geopolitics, Markets and "Slowbalization"

The headlines say the tariff war is still raging. According to Richard Baldwin, Washington has spent the past year quietly backing away from it, one exemption and carve-out at a time. In episode 93, Robert Skidmore and I look at what that retreat means for a global trading system that increasingly seems to be organising itself around the US rather than through it. Then we sit down with Charles-Henry Monchau, Chief Investment Officer at Bank Syz, to ask how investors should think about geopolitics, industrial policy and capital flows in what he calls the era of "slowbalization."

Trade policy, energy security and investment strategy are no longer separate conversations. Canada and the EU are building a deeper partnership, Germany is weighing a tougher economic-security approach to China, and an energy squeeze is heading into winter that looks a lot like 2022. Meanwhile, our guest points out that global equities were hitting record highs despite all the scary headlines. The awkward question for anyone with a portfolio, a supply chain or a heating bill is how those pieces fit together.

What Went Wrong This Week

• The quiet tariff retreat. Baldwin argues the effective US tariff rate rose from about 2% to a peak of around 11% in October 2025, then fell to roughly 6.7% by May 2026, largely through exemptions and lower applied rates rather than public reversals. His read: the rest of the world is adapting around the US in what he calls an "N minus one" trading system.
• Canada and the EU move closer. A deeper strategic partnership, Mark Carney's call for a closer alliance of like-minded democracies, CETA's provisional application, and why supply chains and critical minerals are part of the story.
• Germany's China rethink. Bloomberg reports Berlin is preparing a tougher economic-security approach: tariffs on certain Chinese plug-in hybrids, investment screening, export controls, EU procurement preferences, local content requirements, and possibly joint-venture rules for Chinese firms in Europe. We look at "China shock 2.0," the rare earths choke point, and the price gap between a Renault EV and a BYD or Xpeng.
• The energy squeeze. Hormuz, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refining, record US diesel prices and the on-again, off-again talk of a US export ban, record-low EU gas storage for this time of year, and a fertilizer squeeze that could outlast the Hormuz closure itself (Peter Goodman flagged that one). The lesson: depending on US energy is now a risk you have to hedge.

Our guest: Charles-Henry Monchau

Charles-Henry Monchau is Chief Investment Officer and ExCo member at Bank Syz. Before that, he was CIO of Dubai Investments and head of asset allocation for EMEA at Deutsche Bank, with senior roles across Geneva, Zurich, Dubai, Nassau and Paris. He holds an executive MBA from IE Business School and an MSc in finance from HEC, is a CFA, CMT, CAIA and CIIA charterholder, and is a top voice on LinkedIn with more than 280,000 followers.

In our conversation, we cover:

• What a CIO actually does (the answer involves an orchestra conductor and the auto industry).
• Why contrarian investing is easy to explain and very hard to do: the moment to take some profits is when everything looks perfect, and the hardest moment to buy risk is when it feels like the end of the world.
• From globalisation to "slowbalization": US-China geo-economics, sovereignty, why chips are now made at home rather than by the lowest-cost producer, and the three strategic priorities he sees: AI and robotics, defence, and electric power.
• Why global equities keep hitting all-time highs despite the headlines, from a record DAX with only two tech stocks to a rally broadening across Europe and emerging markets, and why he calls it "the most hated global equity bull market."
• Why geopolitics and geoeconomics are here to stay, as both an opportunity and a risk for investors.
• Why he sees the bond market as the ultimate judge of US policy, from Liberation Day to the "TACO" trade.
• Expat corner: what living abroad taught him about Switzerland, including direct democracy, a constitutional debt brake and a strong franc that pushes companies up the value chain.
• On a scale of zero to SpaceX, how worried should we be about a bubble? His answer: SpaceX is like an option.

You can find Syz's investment insights on the Syz Group website and LinkedIn page.

Plus: why 93 is a surprisingly good number for a trade podcast (neptunium, the end of the GATT Uruguay Round on 15 December 1993, chapter 93 of the Harmonized System, and CERN putting the World Wide Web software into the public domain), Gen Z's "Get Off My Lawn" segment, hobby-maxing as a recession indicator, AI-generated sloths on Vespas, and the return of the river otter to Geneva.

This episode is brought to you by Active Languages, a Geneva-based language training company that has been helping professionals, expats and international families succeed in Switzerland for nearly 30 years. Trade Splaining listeners get a complimentary language level assessment and initial consultation: email [confirm address with Active Languages] and mention Trade Splaining, or learn more at activelanguages.com.

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