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Hello, I'm Will Bain and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

Coming up today, trade wars, rising prices and questions about the independence of decision-making

for the world's biggest central bank.

And all that was just the first half of last year.

So on Business Daily today, we're gathering some of the BBC's top business and economic correspondence to look ahead to 2026 and ask whether we're in for a calmer economic year

and explore what the big trends moving the global economy might be in the year ahead.

Yes, this week we're going to look at the prospects for trade, big tech and AI,

and whether the continuing cost of living squeeze we've been feeling right around the world

could now be driving more radical economic decision-making. To do all that, we're going to be

joined by a panel of the BBC's leading business and economics correspondence. And today, to give us a bit

of an overview for the global economy and the perspective from the world's largest economy, the US,

we're joined by Darshini, David, the BBC's deputy economics editor, and from New York by our North America business correspondent Michelle Flurry.

Darsini, obviously, Tarris has been the story. We kind of knew coming into 2026 it was going to be the story because President Trump had been saying that in the election campaign.

But did we actually underestimate to the scale that it was going to be the story in 2025?

Oh, well, do we start this programme by saying we got things wrong?

Is that what you're asking?

I think, you know, when it came to the start of this year, we looked at 2026 and, you know,

having sat in the same position a year ago, and thought, right, it's a time for reset for the global economy

after we've had that period of intense inflation and, you know, this coming in the back of a pandemic. Was this going to be a bit of breathing space? And then we see the tariffs brought out by President Trump. A lot of economists are saying, 2026, that's when we'll see it. And guess what? We got it in April, of course, that so-called Liberation Day and that big board of tariffs. And as the years gone on, we've been going, oh, hang on a minute, there's some resilience here that's showing out. Even though we saw a bit of a climb down from the president, various trade agreements coming into place, you know, are things working out in a better way than perhaps some had expected in the spring? And I'd say there are upsides and downsides to all

of this. But yes, certainly, this has been the year we saw the World Trading Order turned on

its head much quicker than we thought and much more dramatically. Michelle, bring us to today

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