The backdrop to all this is that the big exporting nations have been producing far more than they are capable of consuming, and then dumping the excess on world markets. The resulting trade and capital imbalances reached their inevitable nemesis in the financial and economic crisis of the past five years. This has proved effective in correcting the imbalances – surpluses have fallen and deficits have shrunk – but the cause is more to do with depressed demand in once-buoyant consumer nations than a change in approach among the big producers. The upshot is ever more global supply chasing a largely stagnant or declining pool of demand. In such circumstances, trade tensions are more or less bound to ratchet up in a highly dangerous fashion.