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If your head has been spinning since Donald Trump walked into the White House Rose Garden and declared “Liberation Day” last Wednesday, we don't blame you. And not just because it was nauseating watching the stock market or your 401(k) crash down, but because it wasn't clear what exactly we were looking at.
As our guest today, economic historian and Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson, wrote in our pages last week:
"Depending on your worldview, you probably think Trump’s tariff blitz is one of two things. Either a committed protectionist is trying to Make America Great Again by killing “globalism,” ending “forever wars,” and bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Let’s call this Project Minecraft. Alternatively, an unhinged demagogue is crashing both the world economy and the liberal international order, mainly to the advantage of authoritarian regimes…But here is what is actually happening: The American empire that came into existence after the failed autarky and isolationism of the 1930s is being broken up after 80 years. Despite Trump’s imperial impulses—wanting to annex Greenland, calling for Canada to become the 51st state—he is engaged right now in a kind of wild decolonization project."
Whether or not you agree with Niall’s conclusion, there’s no question that the real story here is not about the particular tariff rate for Cambodia or Taiwan; rather, it’s fundamentally about reordering America’s place in the world.
Over the past decade, there’s been an intense debate over what role America should play on the world stage, in geopolitics, in trade, and in technology. Trump has made a very clear set of decisions on that question. And that’s the case whether or not most Americans understand the consequences.
So what are the consequences when the U.S. acts unilaterally to upend the global trading system? What is the outcome when the U.S. weaponizes its own economic power? What happens when the world order, as we know it, is upended? Will these actions embolden our adversaries, or weaken them? Will this ultimately make us poorer, or better off? Has the American empire reached its end? And, was this inevitable or self-inflicted?
One note: While Bari and Niall were recording this conversation, Trump announced a 90-day pause on the reciprocal tariffs. Notably, there’s no pause on the tariffs for China. In fact, it went up to 125 percent. But the point remains. And the face-off between America and China has only heated up. What does that mean? Is the twenty-first century destined to be ours, or China’s? All these questions and more with Free Press columnist Niall Ferguson.
If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today.
As of the recording of this episode, 1,012 people have been awarded Nobel Prizes across every category.
This episode is not about any of them.
This episode is about the people who didn’t win a Nobel Prize but arguably should have.
Whether they were the victims of personal petty politics, geopolitics, or sexism, there have been many people who were deserving of Nobel Prizes who never got one.
Learn more about the greatest Nobel Prize snubs in history on this episode of Everything Everything Daily.
In this episode, Christopher Caldwell joins Rusty Reno at The Editor’s Desk to talk about his piece, “Merkel's Country” from the March 2025 issue of the magazine.
Please subscribe at www.firstthings.com/subscribe in order to access this and many other great pieces!
We're sitting down with Eric Matthes, the educator, author, and developer behind Django Simple Deploy. If you've ever struggled with taking that final step of getting your Django app onto a live server (without spending days wrestling with DevOps complexities), then give Django Simple Deploy a look. Eric shares how Django Simple Deploy automates away the boilerplate parts of deployment, so you can focus on building features instead of deciphering endless configs. We'll talk about this new project's journey to 1.0, the range of hosting platforms it supports, and why it's not just for beginners.
Between the study of specific languages and the philosophy of language lies what Ryan Nefdt calls a “Goldilocks zone” of theoretical issues related to language. In The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Nefdt introduces and explores the elements in this zone, including different theories of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and differing views of how language evolved, which languages are possible, and what defines language. Nefdt, a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, shows where dominant linguistic theories, such as Chomskian syntactic theory and truth-conditional semantics, fit in a generalized framework where a key theoretical dimension is the role of social context.
When most of us woke up Wednesday morning, President Donald Trump was still very excited about the tariffs he imposed on dozens of countries that had gone into effect just after midnight eastern time. At the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner the night before, he even claimed the scheme would be ‘legendary in a positive way’ and bragged, ‘These countries are calling us up. Kissing my ass.’ But by Wednesday afternoon, Trump had blinked, announcing a 90-day pause on nearly all of the ‘reciprocal’ tariffs he unveiled last week (China was the exception; he boosted tariffs to 125 percent after Beijing retaliated with it’s own reciprocal tariffs). Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the progressive think tank Groundwork Collaborative and a member of former President Biden’s White House National Economic Council, explains why all this volatility leaves America worse off economically.
And in headlines: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made an uncomfortable guest appearance in the Oval Office, The White House said it’s freezing hundreds of millions in federal funding for Cornell and Northwestern universities, and two federal judges put limits on the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged foreign gang members.
We’re talking about President Trump putting a pause on some tariffs, after all—sending the stock market into a historic rally.
Also, what’s at stake now that millions more federal dollars meant for universities have been frozen, and how Trump is trying to quote “make showers great again.”
Plus, why fewer tourists are visiting America, what to expect from the biggest golf event of the year, and which classic novel turns 100 years old.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
Trump paused most tariffs, except for 1: USA vs China… Who will win the isolation game?
The Masters golf tourney begins today… but the real strategy is in the $1.50 sandwiches.
Harry’s Razors filed to IPO as “Mammoth”... because Harry’s is really a startup studio.
Plus, scammers moved from email, to text, to… job apps? 25% of interviewees will be fake humans.
$SPY $PG $EPC
Want more business storytelling from us? Check out the latest episode of our new weekly deepdive show: The untold origin story of…Peeps 🐣 Listen to The Best Idea Yet: Wondery.fm/TheBestIdeaYetLinks
“The Best Idea Yet”: The untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — From the McDonald’s Happy Meal to Birkenstock sandal to Nintendo’s Super Mario Brothers to Sriracha. New 45-minute episodes drop weekly.
Lollapalooza is a popular music festival that takes place in Chicago's Grant Park each year. But it was conceived as a farewell tour for the band Jane's Addiction, kicking off with a series of chaotic performances across the United States in the summer of 1991. Lollapalooza, a new oral history by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour, documents the wild early days of the festival through interviews with bands like Jane's Addiction, Nine Inch Nails and Green Day. In today's episode, the book's authors speak with NPR's A Martínez about the way the festival united genres and helped bring alternative music into the mainstream.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
