Entrepreneurs – most of whom, to be honest, had never heard of the Doha Round of negotiations on world trade – should be very worried by their collapse.

Most entrepreneurs have come to take global business for granted. Those who have not should make the effort. It is competitive common sense to use the internet to find the very best deals in the world. It is also foolish for anyone wanting to manufacture something not to have it done in a country without the regulatory compliance costs of employing people in the West.

It was not always so. World trade used to be a jungle of tariffs and restrictions. All the clever people knew that these stifled growth and tried to negotiate multilateral agreements to remove them.

However, a panic set in after the Wall Street Crash, and the commitment to multilateral agreements gave way to a policy of bilateral deals between individual states. In practice, these were few and far between. World trade collapsed. That, not the Wall Street Crash, was the real cause of the Great Depression.

Learning the lesson, most of the governments of the world committed themselves in 1947 to a process of the gradual expansion of free trade through multilateral negotiation.

That is the process we have all come to take for granted – and which collapsed with the Doha Round.

It is particularly worrying to hear whispers that a multilateral deal may be impossible and that a series of bilateral deals might be the best way to proceed.

That is just what they said in the 1930s.

All entrepreneurs should start following this story and planning accordingly.

At the very least, it may impact on how all of us do business now. At worst, if nothing is done, we may need to be preparing not just for a passing recession but for a full dress depression.