1862: Lancashire cotton famine

After the American civil war began in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln tried to hamstring the economy of the southern states by blockading cotton exports. Yet that cotton was mostly sent to northwest England, and when supplies dried up in 1862, around 60% of cotton mills of Lancashire stopped production, causing huge hardship, job losses and hunger – and a riot in Stalybridge.

Although some flew Confederate flags in Liverpool and Manchester, Lancashire workers agreed not to use cotton picked by slaves. Lincoln sent aid ships the following year, and UK textile manufacturers developed more efficient processes.

By the end of the war in 1865, both trade and Lancashire’s industries had recovered.

1897: William McKinley’s tariffs

Donald Trump’s hero, President William McKinley, believed strongly that US industry needed protection after two decades of recessions and rising protectionism in Europe, so he introduced a wide range of protectionist measures with the Dingley Tariff Act in 1897.

Ties between the UK and US accounted for 7% of global trade, so with some of McKinley’s tariffs reaching 57%, British industries such as tinplate and alkali manufacturing paid a heavy price. Yet the effects of the tariffs were masked by the strength of the UK economy and an empire-first strategy in which UK exports were given preferential treatment in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

McKinley changed his mind during his second term – in 1901 he came out in support of trade treaties, only to be assassinated the next day.

1929: Smoot-Hawley tariffs

After the Wall Street crash in 1929, the US Congress reacted by introducing stiff tariffs in the belief that it would make the US self-sustaining. Since the tariffs, promoted by Republican Willis C Hawley were mostly directed at Europe, counter-tariffs were swiftly levied by European nations. Trade ground to a halt.

Britain and France had amassed huge debts from US loans during the first world war, and the effect of the trade war was to usher in the Great Depression of the 1930s and the rise of fascism.

1971: The Nixon shock

After the second world war, the international economic order was established at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, with the dollar backed by the price of gold, and other currencies pegged to the dollar. By the 1960s, things started to unravel.

The cost of the Vietnam war, rising inflation and unemployment and the possibility of a run on the dollar led President Richard Nixon to unilaterally abandon the gold standard. The UK was swept along in the decade of instability that followed – which included the recession in 1973, the oil crisis, soaring inflation and the three-day week implemented by Ted Heath after miners went on strike.