Dani Rodrik finds an administration surrogate’s argument for “optimum tariffs” to be self-defeating.
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Economics
Jul 2, 2026
Dani Rodrik
Like the Gilded Age robber barons, the United States under President Donald Trump is using trade policy to benefit itself at the expense of all other countries. But now that administration surrogates are openly acknowledging the strategy, all other major trading powers will surely respond accordingly.
Anne O. Krueger is not surprised that the shakedown of allies and adversaries alike is failing economically and strategically.
Submitting to Trump’s deals, Western allies have ceded their position as defenders of multilateral trade. The world needs new…
A sign of the folly of Trump’s trade policy is that it has inspired no apparent envy among other nations.
Tariffs will take their toll, but the damage done by the White House to the World Trade Organization’s core principles could be…
As the US president’s tariff obsession wreaks havoc, indifference to the workings of global trade will only lead to more…
Even as US trade policy fractures the global system, China faces ‘credibility problem’ in trade leadership over its own practices.
