'The Economist' editor unpacks the 'biggest trade policy shock' of Trump's tariffs (Terry Gross; Fresh Air podcast)

Zanny Minton Beddoes Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, says the president seems to believe that the U.S. is getting a bad deal in the global economy, and that the tariffs will be used as a tool to renegotiate trade agreements: "It might be exactly what President Trump loves. Lots of people coming, knocking on his door, fawning, hoping for a good deal. This is The Art of the Deal on steroids," she says.

But, Minton Beddoes adds, the economic turmoil caused by the tariffs creates "a lot uncertainty, and a lot pain for consumers because tariffs are taxes on consumers. The people who pay this in the end, the cost of the tariffs, are people who pay more for the things that they buy."

"I think we've crossed some kind of a Rubicon in the last week or so, and we're not going to go back to the world as it was before," she says. "People, I think, are increasingly looking at the U.S. not as the shining city on the hill, a place which we all aspired to and certainly held in very high regard, but increasingly, it's a sort of bullying, swaggering, selfish, transactional country."
Interview: 

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5355907/trump-tariffs-zanny-minton-beddoes