This is an excellent NY Times op-ed by Oren Cass which asks the question: Is Donald Trump the person he's obviously been his entire life, or is he a totally different person who exists only in Oren's imagination?
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/o...
1/3
My latest piece for Foreign Affairs argues that the global trading system was broken long before the Trump and Biden administrations set out to reform it. That's because while it is a system that benefits collectively from...
www.foreignaffairs.com/world/global...
It seems hard to discuss tariffs without getting hysterical, but Robert Hockett here discusses conditions under which tariffs might make sense and conditions under which they don't.
open.substack.com/pub/robertho...
All hat, no cattle:
Branko Milanovic: "The world is thus entering a new era in which the rich countries will follow an unusual two-pronged policy. Having jettisoned neoliberal globalization, they’ll now press ahead even more firmly with a project of domestic neoliberalism."
jacobin.com/2025/03/what...
The 4 panel Anakin/Padme meme In the first panel anakin says “im announcing a pause on tariffs.” Padme replies “wow no tariffs!” Anakin replies “Right! Except for the 10% global tariff, which for our 2nd and 3rd top trading partners compounds on top of their current tariffs, along with a 125% tariff on our largest trading partner” The last panel is a befuddled look from Padme
I am now hating on tick-tocks that newspapers always like to do because it makes it seem like this red-light-green-light incompetence on tariffs is just how it’s done and without making the obvious conclusion that the White House is crawling with clowns: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
To the degree bilateral trade balance predicts who “wins” a trade war, advantage lies with the surplus economy, not deficit. China is giving up sales; the US, the deficit country, is giving up goods/services it doesn't produce competitively or at all. @adamposen.bsky.social in @foreignaffairs.com:
It was the bonds and not any alleged Trump plan — he got spooked and rightly so www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
A quick note on Trump's new tariff plan. It's 10 percent across the board, 125 percent (!) on China. What's the effective tariff rate? Well, China was 13 percent of imports in 2024, so you might say .13*125+.87*10 = 24.95. But imports from China will fall, so how do we adjust it? 1/
He just testified all morning about the reasons why the tariff policy was going to make America great. Then he checked his phone and realized everything he just said was canceled on Truth Social.
The White House crafting its economic policy
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to kill a $500 million grant from the Biden admin that would boost steel manufacturing in America’s rust belt, including in JD Vance’s hometown of Middletown, Ohio.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
this is maybe the weekiest wednesday to ever wednesday
Commentary What Trump Doesn’t Get About Tariffs International trade doesn’t work the way the White House thinks it does. By Kimberly Clausing | Contributor April 8, 2025, at 6:08 p.m.
US buyers pay for US tariffs.
Tariffs will not cause a US industrial renaissance & will breed dysfunctional political processes.
“Correcting” the trade balance is not a good policy goal & balancing bilateral trade is even sillier.
Read more @kclausing.bsky.social:
www.usnews.com/opinion/arti...
News reader at a desk. Transcribed Text: Left bubble: "Next up we will discuss the topic with someone whose job is to be a well researched and respected expert in the area." Right bubble: "And in the interest of balance we will also talk to an idiot."
In the interest of balance #news
Reminder: Tariffs aren't paid by other countries.
They're eventually paid by us at the check out line.
And they're regressive — taking a higher percentage out of the paychecks of working people than out of the wealthy.
Tariffs as industrial policy would require results.
Tariffs as economic statecraft would require negotiations.
Tariffs as political theater require nothing other than rhetorical victory.
And sanitizing, sane-washing, supplementing Liberation Day ensures it will be "victorious."
10/10
This is why I believe tariffs as political theater are the most dangerous form. Since there is no intersubjective metric by which to judge them or any clear policy goals to begin with, they may well stay in place regardless of how damaging they are.
9/10
The "Liberation Day" tariffs will be successful because Trump will declare them to be so regardless of the actual impacts. Fox News will sanitize, Navarro will sane-wash, and "outside experts" like Oren Cass will supplement the reality to their liking.
8/10
In this arena, the actual impacts of the tariffs hardly matter at all to their "success." If the information ecosystem can hide even the intersubjective overlapping consensus that is "market forces" from citizens that support Trump, there is no intersubjective metric by which to judge.
7/10
This is reminiscent of Masha Gessen's notion of anti-politics, where the lack of a theory of truth prevents citizens from engaging in debates and discussions about the virtues and outcomes of policies because we cannot even agree on what is happening.
6/10
Sanitizing, sane-washing, and supplementing all serve in concert to rhetorically transform what is an incoherent, haphazard, self-damaging policy into a coherent, well-planed, beneficial one. What we are left with as citizens is a policy space devoid of any theory of truth.
5/10
Finally, "outside" experts come in to reframe the policy according to their policy interests, thereby supplementing the policy with things that are not actually part of it (clarity, gradualism, temporary status) and making the policy seem far more moderate and coherent than it is.
4/10
Second, administration officials provide a sane-washed justification of the policy based on faulty assumptions, untrue statements, and clever mischaracterizations of what the policy actually is, thereby allowing for an imprimatur of technocratic expertise underlying the policy.
3/10
We are seeing this process play out regarding the so-called reciprocal tariffs.
First, the impoverished information ecosystem allows for a sanitized version of the policy outcomes to be transmitted to Trump's domestic coalition, allowing him to declare victory in juxtaposition to reality.
2/10
#tariffs #trade #Trump
New thread 🧵👇
For a while now, I have argued that Trump Tariffs 2.0 should be understood mostly as political theater (see linked article).
Today, I want to talk about the three force multipliers of political theater:
1) Sanitizing
2) Sane-washing
3) Supplementing
1/10
#tariffs #trade #Trump
Excellent article from FT that illustrates how global economic deconcentration allows for tariff circumvention, thereby limiting the extent to which trade barriers can reduce trade openness and thus address the US trade deficit.
I don't think it's being talked about enough that Trump is basing his tariff assaults on Peter Navarro, and Navaro's theories rest on the "research" of "Ron Varo" which is an economist he made up and cited for decades: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP-e...
The @financialtimes.com is not mincing words
"America’s astonishing act of self-harm"
on.ft.com/3YjtOLV