It’s been a little more than seven months since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House, and much has been made of his administration’s unprecedented actions when it comes to trade, geopolitics and domestic matters. There are plenty of detractors pointing to the downsides of the Republican’s moves, but we hear less about what the US should be doing instead. It raises the interesting question: what would the Democratic alternative be?

Host Stephanie Flanders and Noah Smith, a former columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and now a prominent Substack writer, ask whether—if the opposition party returns to power—should it return to the neoliberal policies of the Obama administration, or find its own populist message to match that of Trump? Or perhaps something in between?

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Host Stephanie Flanders speaks with journalist and author Ben Chu to unpack his latest book, Exile Economics: What Happens if Globalisation Fails. As President Donald Trump calls for the US to break its dependence on foreign imports and bring all production “back home,” Chu pulls back the curtain on what abandoning globalization would actually look like—not in theory, but in the messy, interconnected reality of the 21st century. 

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On this episode of Trumponomics, we explore the impact of President Donald Trump’s economic policies on the standing of the US dollar, and the consequences for the US and global economies if the greenback is no longer the world’s primary reserve currency. As our guests explain, it seems that a reckoning has been in the making for some time.

Barry Eichengreen, professor of economics and political science at the University of California Berkeley, joins along with Bloomberg Washington reporter Saleha Mohsin to discuss how reserve currencies come about, how the US dollar ascended to that role and what happens if it falls back to earth.

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With US President Donald Trump’s self-imposed Aug. 1 deadline having come and gone, trading partners across the globe are digesting what his new threatened tariffs might mean for them. 

But it’s early days yet in Trump’s trade war, and everything from the unexpected movement of the dollar to negative jobs data and $1 trillion in trade exemptions continues to cloud the picture. On this episode of Trumponomics, we try to understand how Trump’s tariffs (which, to add more complexity, an appeals court could soon rule illegal) are currently affecting US businesses, China and the rest of the world. Host Stephanie Flanders is joined Bloomberg Economics Chief US Economist Anna Wong and Bloomberg News senior correspondent Shawn Donnan to discuss it all. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-24/friends-of-bls-urge-congress-to-lift-funding-for-us-labor-survey 

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On this week’s Trumponomics, we unpack the promise and peril for America of Trump’s AI vision. Host Stephanie Flanders is joined by Michael Deng, geoeconomics technology analyst for Bloomberg Economics, and Parmy Olson, a columnist with Bloomberg Opinion and author of the book Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT and the Race That Will Change the World. 

Together, they discuss how the administration’s plans when it comes to tariffs, energy and other issues risk isolating the US from the very global tech ecosystem it’s trying to dominate.

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On this episode of Trumponomics, we discuss whether Jerome Powell has overestimated the risk of inflation stemming from the US trade war.

Joining us are Oren Cass, founder and chief economist at American Compass and Anna Wong, chief US economist at Bloomberg Economics who served in various roles in Trump’s first administration. Along with host Stephanie Flanders, they examine whether the Fed has been getting it wrong on rates, and if so, why.

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This week, we examine whether Donald Trump’s efforts to deregulate traditional finance and move crypto further into the mainstream are laying the groundwork for a financial crisis or simply fixing bureaucratic overreach stemming from the last one. 

Christine Harper, a member of Bloomberg’s editorial board and co-author of a memoir by former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, and Katanga Johnson, who covers banking regulation for Bloomberg, join host Stephanie Flanders. 

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This week, we explore how the legislation’s attack on renewable energy may push up electricity bills and damage US competitiveness in AI.

The tax credits in President Joe Biden’s sprawling Inflation Reduction Act were introduced to help the US keep up with rising electricity demand by making clean power sources cheaper. But now the big bill has changed all that, and an executive order issued days after its passage suggests his war on renewables isn’t over yet.

Joining host Stephanie Flanders to discuss this dramatic turn of events (and why members of Congress from states raking in renewable investments supported the bill) are guests Ethan Zindler, head of country and policy research at BloombergNEF and previously climate counselor to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Bloomberg lobbying and influence reporter Emily Birnbaum.  

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On this episode of Trumponomics, we focus on US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, what’s at stake for businesses and the economy, what harm has been done already and whether the administration could change course.

Jonathan Levin, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist focused on US markets and economics, and Kate Davidson, Bloomberg’s managing editor for US economic policy, join host Stephanie Flanders to discuss the many consequences of Trump’s signature campaign promise, whether his administration is likely to modulate its policies—and whether there could be long-term benefits to the broader economy of forcing employers to offer higher wages and better conditions to attract the workers they need.

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Earlier this month host Stephanie Flanders sat down with Cathie Wood, the founder, CEO and chief investment officer of ARK Investment Management, at the Founders Forum Global conference in Oxford. They were joined by Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait and Bloomberg TV UK Correspondent Lizzy Burden. 

Wood gives her take on the 'great rotation' out of US stocks, why she believes investors rebalancing their portfolios, moving away from safe-haven tech stocks and towards riskier investments, and how that's shaping her outlook for the US dollar. 

The conversation was recorded on June 12, 2025. 

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