There is unfortunately absolutely nothing good to say about the announcements U.S. President Donald Trump made during his recent “Liberation Day” event in the White House Rose Garden. Try as one might to “sane-wash” Trump’s economic policies, there is simply no coherent rationale for his supposedly “reciprocal” trade tariffs. Kim Clausing of UCLA sums it up perfectly: “The largest tax increase in more than fifty years will burden U.S. consumers, generating thousands of dollars in tax increases

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is determined to confront China economically and strategically. This is a difficult problem, because so many goods purchased in the United States have supply chains with deep roots in the Chinese manufacturing base. If new U.S. tariffs cause the Chinese renminbi to depreciate, as seems likely, Chinese products will remain competitive, at least in the short run; and if the cost of Chinese imported goods in the U.S. actually rises, this will squeeze lower-income

WASHINGTON, D.C. – For about 1,500 years, high-value goods were moved from China (and perhaps other parts of Asia) to Europe and the Middle East via the Silk Road. The precise route varied over time, but it always ran through and involved local traders in parts of what we now call Central Asia. Today, trade through Central Asia is bustling again, with the Caucasus also getting in on the act. But now the boom is in goods moving from the United States, Japan, Western Europe, and China to Russia,

By declining to include funding for Ukraine as part of the recent deal to avert a government shutdown, the U.S. Congress sent a signal of encouragement to Russian President Vladimir Putin. That makes tightening the price cap on Russian oil exports all the more important. WASHINGTON, DC/CAMBRIDGE – Wars are won and lost on battlefields. But public finance plays a critical role in determining what the combatants can afford. This is particularly true for a long war, which is what Russia’s full-sca