US President Donald Trump’s administration said it’s still finalizing plans to unveil what could be a barrage of new tariffs on America’s trading partners around the world. Trump contends he is waging his global trade war to fix a system he considers unfair to the US. On this week's Trumponomics podcast, we’re going to look at this strategy. But rather than analyze the potential economic impact, we instead look at how the world arrived at this moment.

Host Stephanie Flanders is joined by Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. They discuss whether the countries now in the firing line of America’s tariffs (and primed to retaliate in kind) should have seen Trump’s trade war coming. They also explore how the trade imbalances the US administration is targeting aren’t an accident and can potentially lead to an unstable global economy.

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With President Donald Trump firing independent regulators and killing off advisory committees, David Wilcox, director of US economic research for Bloomberg Economics, and editor Molly Smith discuss why data on the world's largest economy may be next.

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Bloomberg Economics Chief Economist Tom Orlik explores the possibility that the Trump administration is being more strategic than it seems. Orlik offers some historical perspective on Trump’s moves and whether—despite all of the damage inflicted over the past two months—this bumpy road may still take the economy to a better long-term destination. 

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This week, we try to understand a possible "Mar-a-Lago Accord" and the views of Stephen Miran, nominee to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Host Stephanie Flanders is joined by Shawn Donnan, senior writer for economics with Bloomberg, and Mark Sobel, the US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.

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Instead of the “Trump bump” we were talking about at the beginning of the year, a combination of mass terminations across the federal government (many of which may be illegal), sweeping tariffs and a whole lot of uncertainty could be leading to a Trump slump. Or is it, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reassured us this week, just a period of transition?

That’s the question we tackle on this episode of Trumponomics. Host Stephanie Flanders speaks with Evercore ISI’s Kathryn Holston, who served as a White House senior economist last year and before that in the office of the chief economist of the World Bank, and Anna Wong, chief US economist for Bloomberg Economics. 

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Host Stephanie Flanders speaks with Joshua Green, national correspondent at Bloomberg Businessweek, and editor Laura Davison about the likelihood of a shutdown, its consequences for the government and for Americans—and whether anything can stop Musk’s efforts to shrink the government.

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Just as it took the British government a century to catch up to Jonathan Swift’s innovative person-to-person loan program, the U.S. government has been slow to react to crypto, creating bureaucratic and legal hurdles to growth in the industry. But with a new administration and a new Congress, the industry now feels there’s reason to be optimistic that regulatory clarity, and a new chapter in the story of crypto in America, is beginning.

This episode is sponsored by Coinbase.

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One month in, Wall Street’s view on Donald Trump is evolving. Guest host Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, speaks with chief Wall Street correspondent Sridhar Natarajan and finance reporter Hannah Levitt about how finance executives are feeling now. 

“There is still broadly this palpable optimism,” says Levitt, “but it’s a bit more caveated.” Levitt and Natarajan explain those caveats, discussing what the likelihood of higher volatility throughout Trump’s second term means for the bottom lines of big Wall Street firms and unpack why a deregulatory agenda might have unforeseen consequences. 

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On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to end Russia’s war on Ukraine in a day. Weeks into his presidency, that hasn’t happened. Now his decision to start negotiations with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin while demanding Europe bear the brunt of future aid to Ukraine has been met with shock—but not surprise.

In a bonus episode of Trumponomics, recorded at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, we discuss the cost of Trump’s about-face on American commitments and whether a continent beset by fiscal constraints and political division can go it alone. Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg’s correspondent-at-large for Europe, and Antonio Barroso, senior geoeconomics analyst for Europe at Bloomberg Economics join host Stephanie Flanders. 

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Bill Dudley, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and former New York Federal Reserve Bank president, and Bloomberg Economics Chief US Economist Anna Wong join Stephanie Flanders to discuss the Treasury secretary’s plan to reduce the deficit and its collision with economic reality.

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