Beyond Economics: Why Trump’s Return Demands a Rethink of Marketing Models and Teaching

When Michael Porter developed the Value Chain and Igor Ansoff introduced his Growth Matrix, both frameworks operated on the assumption of geopolitical stability and open, rules-based international trade. These models flourished in a global order characterised by predictable market access, liberal economic policies, and minimal political interference.

Donald Trump’s recent return to the US presidency — and his rapid reimposition of aggressive tariff regimes — reintroduces a climate of uncertainty that destabilises these assumptions. Protectionism, economic nationalism, and transactional diplomacy now define global trade relationships. This is not a temporary deviation but a structural recalibration, signalling a new era where political shocks are not anomalies but constants.

This article argues that Trump’s second presidency should prompt both marketing professionals and educators to fundamentally reassess the tools they rely on. Strategic models that once guided confident international expansion now risk obsolescence. Likewise, marketing curricula built on assumptions of stable globalisation must evolve to address a more fragmented and politically charged commercial landscape.

Marketing, in both boardroom and classroom, must now account for systemic geopolitical disruption. To remain relevant, our strategic frameworks — and the way we teach them — must adapt to this new reality.

Strategic Marketing Under Political Volatility

The return of protectionist policies under Donald Trump’s renewed presidency has quickly reshaped the global marketing landscape. Tariffs on Chinese goods, European imports, and even allied trading partners mark a significant departure from decades of liberal trade orthodoxy. For marketers, this is not simply a macroeconomic development—it is a disruption that directly impacts strategy formulation and execution at multiple levels of the value chain.

Market Entry and International Expansion

Tariff regimes and retaliatory trade measures introduce new frictions into international marketing strategies. The assumptions that once made global market entry a matter of targeting, segmentation, and local adaptation now require additional geopolitical risk assessments and cost modelling. For instance, American beauty brands that once relied on China as a key growth market now face punitive import taxes and the possibility of rising anti-American consumer sentiment, which could lead to stalled expansion plans and reallocated marketing budgets.

These dynamics mirror what Hooley et al. (2020) identify as the increasing importance of environmental scanning in strategic marketing. Under volatile political conditions, firms must engage in continuous monitoring of legislative shifts, bilateral agreements, and trade blocks—dimensions that were previously treated as static background conditions in global strategy.

Supply Chain Efficiency and Strategic Sourcing

Tariffs also disrupt the efficiency and predictability of supply chains—areas where marketing intersects closely with operations and procurement. In tech sectors, for example, companies like Apple and Dell will have to reevaluate their supplier ecosystems, possibly shifting some production to Southeast Asia to avoid tariff costs. These moves are not operational decisions alone—they affect time-to-market, brand messaging (“Made in Vietnam” vs. “Made in China”), and price positioning in consumer markets.

Kotler and Armstrong (2020) underscore the need for marketers to align closely with logistics and finance when responding to such external shocks. Marketing strategies can no longer be siloed; integrated cross-functional planning becomes essential when tariffs can change overnight, and just-in-time supply chains morph into just-in-case contingencies.

Pricing, Value Propositions, and Consumer Perceptions

Tariffs often force price increases or margin compressions, placing marketers in the position of either passing on costs to consumers or absorbing them to preserve market share. This has profound implications for brand positioning and value propositions. In sectors like consumer electronics or home appliances, brands must communicate higher prices while defending perceived value—often amid rising competition from local substitutes or gray-market imports.

Moreover, in politically charged climates, pricing is not merely a matter of cost-plus formulas. It becomes entangled with brand ethics and national identity. For example, pricing strategies that favour U.S. consumers over foreign buyers—intended as patriotic—may trigger backlash abroad, particularly in cultures sensitive to fairness and reciprocity.

Strategic marketing must now contend with the re-politicisation of trade. The marketer’s traditional toolkit—rooted in predictable regulatory environments and frictionless globalisation—is being tested. Volatility is not an outlier but the new baseline. As such, strategic agility, geopolitical literacy, and interdisciplinary collaboration are becoming core competencies for marketers in the post-global order.

Implications for Marketing Frameworks

Marketing frameworks have long been predicated on the idea that while markets evolve, they do so within a relatively stable global system. Frameworks like Ansoff’s Matrix, Porter’s Value Chain, and SWOT analysis offer structured, often linear pathways to growth, differentiation, and competitive advantage. But in a world where political decisions—especially those involving tariffs, trade policy, or diplomatic friction—can redraw the map overnight, the foundational logic of these models is being tested.

Challenging the Assumptions of Stability

At their core, classic models like Ansoff’s Growth Matrix assume that strategic decisions around market penetration, product development, or diversification can be evaluated through rational analysis of risk, cost, and capability. However, the return of politically driven trade policies injects a new type of risk—one that is neither easily quantifiable nor historically cyclical. Trade barriers may now be imposed for political signalling rather than economic logic, making historical data and trend-based forecasting less reliable.

For example, while Ansoff encourages international market development as a logical growth path, such moves are increasingly fraught with political complexity. A sudden imposition of tariffs or export controls—such as those recently directed at the semiconductor industry—can render a previously sound growth strategy unviable within a matter of weeks. As a result, the predictive utility of such frameworks becomes less certain.

Re-examining Porter’s Value Chain and Competitive Advantage

Porter’s Value Chain, too, presupposes a global environment where firms can optimise each activity (inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, etc.) for efficiency and cost advantage. But under volatile political regimes, these efficiencies can be disrupted with little notice. A supply chain optimised for lowest cost may become a liability when reshoring becomes politically incentivised or when sanctions limit supplier relationships.

What this suggests is not the obsolescence of Porter’s model, but rather a need for reinterpretation. Value creation can no longer be defined solely through efficiency—it must now account for resilience, redundancy, and adaptability. Firms may choose, for instance, to operate at higher costs in exchange for geographic diversification of risk.

The Limits of Predictive Models and the Rise of Scenario Thinking

The traditional role of frameworks has been to simplify complexity. But the current environment demands tools that embrace uncertainty rather than reduce it. Here, alternative approaches such as scenario planning (Berg & Pietersma, 2014) and systems thinking become increasingly relevant. These models do not offer definitive answers but instead prepare marketers to think in terms of multiple plausible futures.

For example, marketing leaders may now need to plan simultaneously for a scenario in which tariffs are lifted due to diplomatic rapprochement, and another in which trade barriers intensify due to domestic political pressures. In this context, the role of strategic frameworks shifts: from decision maps to decision aids, from guiding the “best” path to helping firms remain agile across a range of possibilities.

Rethinking Metrics and Evaluation

The instability also raises questions around how we measure success. As Farris et al. (2017) note, many marketing metrics assume continuity and comparability over time—stable market conditions, predictable consumer response, and clear ROI attribution. These assumptions are increasingly tenuous. For example, a sudden change in regulation or market access can distort performance indicators like customer lifetime value (CLV) or marketing ROI (MROI), making them difficult to benchmark year-over-year.

Traditional marketing frameworks remain valuable, but only if their underlying assumptions are interrogated. The volatility introduced by political disruption—especially in trade and international policy—demands a shift from deterministic models to probabilistic thinking. Rather than replacing legacy tools, marketers and educators may need to layer them with adaptive, scenario-based methods that are more aligned with today’s uncertain environment.

Rethinking the Marketing Classroom

If traditional marketing frameworks are strained under the weight of geopolitical volatility, then so too is the way they are taught. For decades, business schools have trained students to master models like Ansoff, Porter, and the 4Ps in environments designed to promote clarity, order, and strategic confidence. But when the real world becomes increasingly unpredictable, the pedagogical approach must adapt—not just in content, but in mindset.

Teaching Assumptions in a Post-Global Order

The marketing classroom often presents strategy as a series of rational choices made within a stable external environment. Case studies and simulations are built around relatively fixed conditions: known competitors, transparent markets, predictable consumer behaviour. But as Kotler & Armstrong (2020) note in their treatment of global marketing, these conditions are increasingly fragile.

What assumptions underpin the frameworks we teach?

In light of Trump’s tariff-centric policies and broader economic nationalism, educators must ask: What assumptions underpin the frameworks we teach? If a key component of the Value Chain can be disrupted by a presidential tweet or executive order, students must be trained to recognise these risks—not as exceptions, but as recurring strategic variables.

Updating Case Studies and Classroom Scenarios

Teaching must move beyond linear, retrospective business cases toward multifaceted, forward-looking scenarios. A case about a US-based manufacturer entering China, for example, should now include potential tariff escalation, diplomatic breakdown, and consumer nationalism as real-time variables—not just historical footnotes. The same applies to pricing models, distribution strategies, and product localisation decisions.

This opens the door to new learning formats: scenario planning workshops, cross-disciplinary modules with political science and international relations, and assignments requiring students to revise established strategies under rapidly changing policy conditions. Hooley et al. (2020) advocate for a greater integration of environmental scanning into strategic marketing planning—a practice that should begin in the lecture hall.

Cultivating Critical Thinking over Model Mastery

Business education has long prized model literacy: can students apply the Ansoff Matrix or conduct a Five Forces analysis? But perhaps the more pressing skill is model critique. Teaching students to question the applicability of a framework under volatile conditions builds intellectual agility—an increasingly important trait for marketers entering disrupted industries.

This also invites an interdisciplinary turn. Concepts from systems thinking (Berg & Pietersma, 2014), risk management, and even behavioral economics can help students understand how markets respond not just to supply and demand, but to uncertainty, perception, and power. Marketing education must prepare graduates for a world where cause and effect are not always linear, and success depends as much on foresight as it does on strategy.

In a disrupted world, the classroom must become a laboratory for uncertainty. Marketing students need more than a toolkit—they need a cognitive framework for thinking strategically when the tools themselves are in flux. This calls for a reimagination of both curriculum and pedagogy: one that embraces ambiguity, interrogates models, and prepares students to lead in an era where volatility is the norm, not the exception.

Strategic Alignment Between Practice and Pedagogy

As political turbulence reshapes the business landscape, both marketing practitioners and educators face a shared challenge: how to remain relevant when the ground beneath them is shifting. The disruption is not confined to strategy or curriculum alone—it demands a system-wide realignment between how marketing is practised and how it is taught.

Shared Exposure to Uncertainty

Marketing professionals and academics alike must navigate environments marked by uncertainty. For practitioners, this means coping with abrupt policy changes, fractured trade relationships, and volatile consumer sentiment. For educators, it means rethinking course design, learning objectives, and the very frameworks that structure student understanding.

Yet both groups are responding—often in isolation. Business leaders are developing adaptive strategies using agile marketing and scenario planning, while educators begin to introduce geopolitical and sustainability themes into marketing modules. The risk, however, is misalignment: students may graduate with theoretical knowledge that no longer matches the demands of a post-globalised marketing environment.

Toward Mutual Learning and Co-Design

What’s needed is a stronger feedback loop between academia and industry. Business schools should not only consult practitioners for guest lectures or internship placements, but engage them as co-creators of curriculum. Conversely, marketing departments could benefit from the critical, reflective lens that academia brings—particularly in periods where intuition and tradition no longer suffice.

Joint research, co-developed case studies, and practitioner-led modules on market volatility or international risk can offer students a richer, more grounded education. And in turn, academics can gain real-time insight into the evolving nature of competitive positioning under political disruption—knowledge that can be fed back into both teaching and research.

The divide between marketing practice and pedagogy must narrow if either is to remain effective. Strategic and educational adaptation are two sides of the same coin. By aligning more closely, marketers and educators can co-develop the tools and mindsets needed to navigate—and thrive in—an era where disruption is the default setting.

Rewriting the Rules of Marketing

The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, along with his renewed commitment to protectionist trade policies, is more than a political event—it is a stress test for the foundational assumptions of marketing strategy and education. Core models like the Ansoff Matrix and Porter’s Value Chain, built for eras of relative stability and economic openness, now sit uneasily within a world marked by abrupt disruption and systemic volatility.

This moment calls for more than tactical adjustments. It demands a reconceptualisation of what marketing is and how it prepares future leaders. Strategy must be reoriented to account for unpredictability as a constant, not an anomaly. And classrooms must evolve into spaces where ambiguity is explored, not avoided—where students learn not just how to apply frameworks, but when and why they may fail.

Neither business nor academia can address this alone. Strategic adaptation and pedagogical reinvention must proceed in concert, driven by a shared recognition that the rules of the game have changed. If we are to equip marketers for the world ahead, we must begin by acknowledging that the models we inherited were designed for a different one.

References

Berg, G.V.D. & Pietersma, P. (2014) Key Management Models, 3rd Edition: The 75+ Models Every Manager Needs to Know. Ft Press, 

Farris, P.W. et al. (2017) Key Marketing Metrics: The 50+ Metrics Every Manager Needs to Know. 

Hooley, G.J. et al. (2020) Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning. 

Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2020) Principles of Marketing, Global Edtion.