The US as the World’s Robber Baron¶
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.
CAMBRIDGE—In a remarkablecommentarypublished at the end of June, a former leading economist in the Trump administration acknowledges (and endorses) what many have suspected: The function of Trump’s foreign economic policy is to act like a 21st-century robber baron.