WHAT makes countries rich? It’s a question we do not ask ourselves enough.

For almost all of human history every man, woman and child had nothing, but now 200 years after the industrial revolution barely 10% of people in the world live below the extreme poverty line. Indeed, absolute poverty has collapsed by 90% since 1820, something made all the more remarkable given the huge explosion in population in the same timeframe.

It’s an extraordinary, and very recent achievement.

The economist and philosopher Adam Smith was perhaps the most celebrated thinker to explain the march towards prosperity.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.”

We trade with one another because it is in our mutual interests to do so — and that principle of mutual benefit is the driver for the spread of wealth. 

Make no mistake, shipping is at the heart of that principle, with more than 50,000 ships moving 90% of all world trade.

Of course we are the go-between, the packhorse in the supply chain that quietly goes about its business while the customer and consumer do their deals. But too rarely do we acknowledge our role in connecting countries and people through traded goods, energy supplies and tourism. Not only is trade the best route to prosperity, it is the best form of diplomacy too.

Our industry has steadily been finding its voice. While in many ways shipping has been on the cutting edge of business practices, for a long time it has struggled to find its place in a brave new world where the mechanics of profile and influence shift as often as the news cycle. But in recent years the industry has begun to find a new confidence, a new willingness to take its place as a major player in macro-economic and political debate.

We should have the confidence therefore to know that if we have any responsibility in the realms of public discourse, surely it is to fight the rise of protectionism.

Not so long ago, the only time matters concerning tariffs were being debated was when they were being removed. The trend in recent decades has been the steady liberalisation of trading economies, but the USA, China, European Union, Turkey, Canada and others are once again walking a path towards trade war. If the liberalisation trend is being reversed, then so too will be the march towards prosperity.

In the past 30 years, we have witnessed the single greatest decrease in human deprivation in history.

In 1993, 45% of India’s population sat below the poverty line; in 2011 it was 22% — it is no coincidence that in the intervening period India embraced globalisation and liberalised its economy. So we should listen when India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls the resurgence in Western protectionism a “disturbing trend”. So too must we remind those who promote protectionism — whether as the instigator or the retaliator — just what is at stake.

Having only been in post as chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping a matter of weeks, you would expect me to still be finding my feet. But it’s become clear very quickly that trade associations have a hugely important role in representing the industry not just at a technical and regulatory level, but at a macro level too.

Maritime trade associations and their members around the world have a duty not just to fight the protectionist trend, but to promote the benefits of free trade wherever possible, to ensure barriers are torn down and not reinstated. 

Bob Sanguinetti is chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping.