Do tariffs work, and what is Trump trying to do? It’s not advisable to try and second-guess such an unpredictable man, but his role model also presided over a high-tariff regime designed to protect domestic American industries. In his inaugural address, Trump harked back to William McKinley, the 25th US president, who was in office…
Game theorist Thomas Schelling once wrote that coercion depends more on “the threat of what is yet to come than on damage already done.” He added that countries in conflict situations would want “an impressive unspent capacity for damage be kept in reserve.” Schelling wrote his classic works on strategy in the context of the…
Now that a jobs crisis is weakening its hold on power in India, how serious is the BJP government about reviving Indian factories? We will know in the budget, which offers it a chance to remedy a disastrous lurch toward protectionism. Without fixing that folly, the country could miss an opportunity to join key global…
