Why Trump’s Tariffs Won’t Work | The Ezra Klein Show

Wall Street thought Donald Trump was bluffing about his tariff plans. The stock market rallied after his election. But the reality has started setting in. Trump is doubling down on tariffs, even as he warned Americans that the economy may experience a “period of transition,” insisting this is just short-term pain.

So what exactly is Trump’s theory here? And how much pain should we expect?

Answering those questions requires a bit of a tariffs primer. And the economist Kimberly Clausing kindly agreed to come on the show, walk through the basics, and help me make sense of what Trump is doing here. Clausing has modeled the possible costs and consequences of the tariffs Trump has proposed, and she breaks down how much you and I might end up paying. Clausing is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a professor at U.C.L.A. and the author of “Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital."

This conversation contains strong language.

Note: This conversation was recorded on Wednesday, March 5.

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Read the full transcript here