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President Trump shocked the world earlier this year when he announced plans to impose tariffs affecting nearly all goods entering America.

But rather than coming as a surprise, the US President had made the policy one of the key cornerstones of his re-election campaign. He'd also implemented some tariffs during his first term in office too.

Despite strong opposition to the move, President Trump enjoys the unflinching support of economist Peter Navarro, who is seen by many as the architect of the agenda. Having advised the US President during his first term in office, Navarro is back in the White House to see it through.

In this episode of Profile, Mark Coles explores the life, career and journey of Trump's key economic advisor on global trade.

Presenter: Mark Coles

Archive

The U.S. dollar is the lingua franca of the global financial system. The fact that so much of the world relies on our currency has long been understood as our exorbitant privilege — the reason we have so much leverage in the global economy and are able to borrow at lower interest rates.

But the Trump administration has a much more complicated relationship with the dollar. It has come to see dollar dominance as a burden we bear on behalf of the rest of the world. But in its attempts to move away from dollar dominance, is the Trump administration on the verge of creating a financial crisis?

Kenneth Rogoff is a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor of economics at Harvard University. He has a book coming out called “Our Dollar, Your Problem.” In this conversation he walks through the history of dollar dominance, why it’s been waning in recent years and what ripple effects the Trump administration’s policies might have.

This episode contains strong language.

Book Recommendations:

Muppets in Moscow by Natasha Lance Rogoff

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.html

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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Why Marx was right

Having fallen out of favour around the turn of the century, Marxism is now back in fashion, often playing the role of an alternative to the increasingly right-wing politics of the modern world. Once the guiding ideology of Korean guerillas and Hampstead screenwriters alike, Marxism is back and taking universities and intellectual circles by storm, capturing the minds of students and teachers alike. In a time of Brexit, billionaires, and MAGA, Terry Eagleton defends the Marxist alternative, challenging the standard critiques and explaining why the German philosopher's thoughts remain as relevant as ever.

Terry Eagleton is one of the world’s most influential literary theorists and critics. He is Professor of English Literature at the University of Lancaster, and also the author of more than 40 books, including "Literary Theory: An Introduction" (1983) and "Why Marx Was Right" (2011).

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In 1998, the Snake game made its debut on mobile phones. It is known for its simple yet addictive gameplay and played a major role in popularising mobile gaming.

Taneli Armanto is the man responsible for bringing it to our phones, but he only got the task because of mistaken identity.

He tells Gill Kearsley the story behind the game that made millions of people not want to put down their phones.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Snake game. Credit: IMDB)

We have a key, finally, to the mystery of Donald Trump and where he came from. He was born almost exactly 100 years ago in the imagination of the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. What he stands for by now is a sort of MAGA question: can Donald Trump make America Gatsby’s again? As in: The Great Gatsby, published in 1925.

Sarah Churchwell.

The book makes every list of great American novels, but it’s more than that. It’s a high-style satire and prophetic tragedy about a dreamer who invented not just a fake self, but a whole cast of rich, mostly repellent characters and wannabes all around him—those famously careless people who smash things up for as long as they can and then let other people clean up their messes. Our guest, Sarah Churchwell, is not the first to make the Gatsby-Trump connection, but nobody has mapped it as broadly as she has.

On Point news analyst Jack Beatty on the centrality of the rule of law in the U.S.

And the findings of a Pew Research poll that 88% of Americans believe that President Trump should follow Supreme Court orders.

This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

Leni Riefenstahl has been hailed as one of the greatest directors of all time, even though her most famous films were works of propaganda for Hitler's Reich. Her film about the 1934 Nuremberg rallies broke new ground in cinematic techniques and had a huge influence on filmmakers for years to come. Riefenstahl always claimed she was just an artist, unaware of Nazi atrocities, but a new documentary reveals secrets from her extensive archives.

• GUEST: Andres Veiel, Director, 'Riefenstahl', showing at the German Film Festival 
• PRODUCER: Catherine Zengerer