The 2026 Trade War World Cup encapsulates our new nativist world order | Aaron Timms
The Trump administration?s tariffs have sparked tension with co-hosts Canada and Mexico. That?s bad news for a tournament that is supposed to unite nations
The start of the run-up to a World Cup is traditionally an upbeat affair. New stadium launches, inclusion-friendly marketing and merch campaigns, the unveiling of a tournament song or quirky mascot: these are the traditional signals by which host nations announce that the big show is approaching. This time, pre-tournament preparations are taking shape a little differently. Thanks to Donald Trump and his determination to pursue economic armageddon against the US?s co-hosts, Canada and Mexico, the tone for the 2026 World Cup is being set not by Shakira or an anthropomorphic keffiyeh but by reciprocal tariffs, a flurry of cross-border insults, and crumbling diplomatic relations between the host nations. On Tuesday, Trump confirmed that the US will begin imposing levies on most imports from Canada and Mexico; Canada immediately retaliated, and Mexico looks set to follow. Welcome to the Trade War World Cup; please tip your host 25% of the entrance fee on your way in. If things continue on their current course, the 2026 tournament will be the first installment of the World Cup to be co-hosted by the antagonists of an active international economic conflict.
Whether things do in fact continue as they are is, of course, difficult to predict: Trump?s approach to policy is famously erratic, and the protectionism that marked his first administration was leavened by various exemptions and carve-outs to the tariffs imposed on trading partners, a cycle of aggression and moderation that could be repeated this time round. With the first match still 15 months away, there?s plenty of time for the deterioration in diplomatic relations between the co-hosts to give way to reconciliation. But as things stand today, with Trump and his cabinet lackeys apparently hell bent on trashing the global economy and humiliating traditional allies, that hope seems pretty remote. The US ? which is due to host 75% of the matches during the 2026 tournament, and every fixture from the quarter-finals onwards ? looks set to steam into the approaching World Cup with a spirit of hospitality roughly equivalent to Roy Keane sizing up Alf-Inge Haaland?s knee.
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