Rana Foroohar

Yeah.

Well, they haven't explained them well. And I think that that's one of the reasons that markets have actually been very jittery in the last few days and weeks. And just to step way back, I mean, this is an experiment that really hasn't been tried in 40, 50 years. So what we're talking about is a big change to the way the American economy and the global economy potentially works.

There are a lot of reasons for it. I want to even caveat a little bit further before I get into those and say that You always have to count his psychology as part of the equation here. Yeah.

It's hard to say ripped off when you look at how successful the US is and rich compared to really any other country. That said, you could look at the tariff numbers themselves. Average US tariffs on the rest of the world are around 2%. Europe, EU would be about 5%. China would be about 10%. So you could look at those numbers and say, hmm, something's not fair here.

Maybe we need to rejigger things.

I wouldn't look at it as subsidies, and I don't get quite as worked up about the actual trade balance as Trump and some of his advisors do. But what I would say is that we have kept tariffs very, very low and allowed a lot of countries access to the U.S. market. with the idea that the way you make an economy work is by driving up stock prices and lowering consumer prices.

And having a very, very open market has allowed that to happen. But there have also been ways in which domestic industries, critical minerals, semiconductors, electric vehicles, when you don't support those industries, they can go abroad. And then in times of crisis, you may regret that.

Probably not this time around. I would actually caveat what you just said, though. And it wasn't just consumers that absorbed the prices, which actually, to be fair, the tariffs in 2018, 2019 didn't cause appreciable inflation because China actually adjusted its own currency to eat some of those costs. That's exactly what the Trump administration is saying is going to happen this time.

But that I don't believe. Because now you're looking at not just one country in one area. You're looking, if the proposals go through, at all countries in many different areas. And I think that that's going to be an entirely different scenario. And you might see, you know, reciprocal tariffs, potentially the beginning of a trade war. That's real. That's a real worry.

So I think that there are a number of economic nationalists within the administration who that see tariffs as a way to re-industrialize, as a way to bolster critical areas, not just the economy, but for security. Ships would be one good example. I mean, China's got about 5,500 seagoing vessels. America has a little over 180. That's a problem if you're in a war.

But you have to do things at home and abroad if you want to actually support industries for economic or political or security reasons. And I don't see the home piece of this yet. I just see the tariff piece of it.

I think he, of course, he cares what people think. I mean, he cares about being perceived as being successful, as a winner. You know, the markets are going down, sad to say, not up. So I got to think at some point, even despite some of the comments he's made about, you know, we're happy to take some pain. We don't care if prices are higher. I think if you see popular opinion really falling,

I got to think that that's going to matter. If it doesn't, boy, we may be in for not just economic turmoil, but some political turmoil, too, I think.

Thank you for having me.