Inside The Global 2000: Trump’s Tariffs Haven’t Stopped The World’s Growth… Yet

Donald Trump has used his first five months back in office to attack longtime allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union, insisting the United States “will no longer tolerate being ripped off.”

His posture with trade partners has been more competitive than collaborative, imposing or threatening heavy-handed tariffs under the pretense that they’re running up trade deficits to enrich themselves at Americans’ expense. He’s right that U.S. manufacturing jobs have sharply dropped since the turn of the century, gutting industrial cities across America’s heartland that have in turn flocked to him in voting booths. But it’s hard to make the case that globalization has been a zero-sum game.

For the last 23 years, Forbes has compiled the Global 2000 list, ranking the world’s 2,000 largest companies by revenue, profit, assets and market value, with equal weights for each of the four metrics. Twenty years ago, the 2,000 companies on the list combined to record $21.9 trillion in annual sales, $1.3 trillion in profit, $80.7 trillion in assets and $26.6 trillion in market value. Every half decade since, all of those numbers have steadily climbed, and this year’s totals amount to records of $52.9 trillion in revenue, $4.9 trillion in profit, $242.2 trillion in assets and $91.3 trillion in market cap.

Much of that astounding growth, including more than doubling in revenues has taken place in the U.S., where the S&P 500 index is up fivefold in the last two decades. It’s home to Walmart, the company with the highest 12-month sales in the world, Alphabet, the world’s most profitable company, and Apple, the most valuable company as of April 25, when the data used to rank the list was compiled.

Now, leaders of many of the most prominent companies in the U.S. and around the world are fretting that a trade war could stunt that growth.

While the top 100 American companies on the list have gained, on average, 10.5% in market value, underperforming the top 100 companies outside of the United States by three percentage points. In fact, since Trump took office, the S&P 500, which has swung wildly, has gained a mere 0.59%, versus nearly 20% gains for stocks in Europe and China. Over the past 10 years, the top 100 U.S.   Stocks on Forbes list have an average cumulative return of 488% versus 143% average return for the top 100 stocks outside the United States.

In terms of overall numbers, the United States is still first by a wide margin, with 612 companies on the list headquartered here, a slight drop from 621 last year. China is next with 317 companies represented, including firms based in Hong Kong.

The U.S. remains the world’s most powerful economy, and it’s up to Trump and Congress to decide whether what is effectively the tax revenue from government heavy-handedness on trade deals, is worth sacrificing the economic gains the United States and its allies have long benefited from due to globalization.

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