One Year of Trump’s Economic Statecraft

One Year of Trump’s Economic Statecraft

From Statecraft by Santi Ruiz

January 27, 2026 · 1h 32m

About this episode

The episode assesses the first year of Trump's second term in economic statecraft with insights from liberal economists and policymakers.

When I got this episode on the calendar a month ago, my vision was, “Let’s get three of the smartest, most thoughtful liberals I can find on the topic of economic statecraft, and we’ll do a full assessment of the first year of Trump’s second term.” The idea was to take each of the domains — tariffs and the trade war, export controls, industrial policy — and do two things: get an accurate picture of what’s actually happened, and hear how Biden admin insiders and Democratic thinkers see them. Where are there continuities between administrations? Where have their expectations been overturned? And what lessons are they incorporating into their own worldviews? Then, in a totally novel example of economic statecraft, we grabbed Maduro and seized Venezuelan oil; we had to discuss that too. As a result, we’re doing a lot in this episode, and we leave some important questions out: the legal challenges to the current tariff regime, for example. But I think readers will come away from this episode with a clear view of the old and new tools of US policy in the realm of economic statecraft. Our guests Daleep Singh is an economist who served in two separate periods in the Biden Administration…

People in this episode

Host: Santi Ruiz

Guests: Daleep Singh, Peter Harrell

Topics covered

  • economic statecraft
  • US policy
  • tariffs
  • trade war
  • export controls
  • industrial policy

Keywords

  • economic statecraft
  • Trump
  • Biden
  • tariffs
  • trade war
  • export controls
  • industrial policy
  • Venezuela
  • Maduro

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Biden Administration, National Security Council, National Economic Council

Places: Venezuela

More episodes of Statecraft

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Statecraft podcast page.