New Delhi, July 16 -- The US administration's 9 July deadline for trade deals and tariff announcements has come and gone and been extended to 1 August. Since 'Liberation Day' in April, which should have been called 'Deliberation Day' because it was merely the starting point in negotiations, the number of countries with US trade deals can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even so, fuzzy contours of the giant jigsaw puzzle that is global trade are beginning to take shape.

Inevitably, the world's multinationals and giant retailers have been slow to move production and factories for the understandable reason that this takes time. Instead, they have filled up warehouses with goods, racing to beat changing deadlines for new tariffs while ...