Amid Trump's trade war, co-operative economics can thrive
President Trump holding up a just signed executive order creating reciprocal tariffs, Washington, USA, 2nd Apr, 2025 (Credit: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire)
4 min read
The international and domestic kaleidoscope has been well and truly shaken.
Tariffs, trade wars and economic shocks have caused huge economic and political pressures, but they have also highlighted a yearning for something better. With threat comes opportunity. An opportunity to take a different path and to reset our economy so that it delivers for the people who should always have been at its heart, in communities up and down the country.
The government has been clear-eyed about the failures of globalisation to deliver for communities. It’s why the Business Secretary took decisive action to take control of British Steel, safeguarding not only thousands of jobs but the communities that rely on them too. It’s also why the government has already committed to doubling the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, supporting business models which directly and uniquely benefit communities, as part of its drive for economic growth.
It means wealth that stays local, putting money in local people's pockets
But now is the time to go further. The changing global context provides government with an opportunity to redefine our economic settlement and put communities at its centre. In the co-operative movement, we believe there is a model that delivers the economic growth we need, while also delivering for people and communities in a transformational way. The co-operative model is business done differently – these are shops, energy companies, nurseries, banks and more which deliver goods and services like any other business, but rather than being owned by distant shareholders chasing profit, they are owned by members. Some of the biggest and most financially successful businesses in the UK are owned and operated this way, but so too are thriving small businesses on local highstreets, rooted in communities.
Evidence shows that these businesses are more resilient, more long-lasting and often more productive than other models, meaning they should be considered serious options at a time of economic crisis. But the power of the model is also about more than that. It's about local economies that genuinely serve their communities. An economy with co-operatives at its heart means local places that are sustained by businesses owned by members of the community. It means wealth that stays local, putting money in local people's pockets, creating jobs and sustaining local high streets and town centres with businesses that local people want.
We believe a supercharging of the practical beauty and power of co-operative, mutual and community-based economic growth is a vital step in rebuilding for the age of uncertainty we have entered. Stronger local co-operative economies mean that, when economic shocks hit, communities are better prepared, with more control and autonomy over their local place and their local economy. And putting the co-operative model at the centre of our drive for economic growth ensures that growth never feels like a distant, unrelatable concept for working people, but something they can genuinely see and feel in their community.
Too often, the co-operative model is seen as a thing of the past. Our movement tells stories of 19th-century pioneers who created something genuinely radical, but the truth is that their model was exported around the world while being marginalised here in the UK. Our neighbours in Europe and beyond have thriving co-operative economies that have transformed entire sectors, while we, the birthplace of the model, lag behind. Now is the moment to catch up and reap the benefits this model has delivered around the world.
Far from being consigned to history, I believe co-operative economics can and should be the future. The government is right that we need a new approach, but now is the time to seize the opportunity to build from the bottom, rather than hope all solutions come from the top.
We can start to build a country where co-operative businesses can grow and thrive, where local energy projects give communities a stake in a clean energy future, where local assets like pubs, libraries and parks are genuinely owned and shaped by local people. We can look ahead to an economy that delivers growth for local places, where the benefits of a growing economy are felt by local people. And we can work towards an economic and political system that is able to better withstand external shocks, because it is rooted from the ground up.
Joe Fortune is general secretary of the Co-operative Party
