The tariff madness of King Donald, explained

Apr 10th 2025

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Washington, DC

For people who believe themselves to be autonomous individuals possessed of their own free will, the past week has been a bracing corrective. Everyone, down to the most rugged individualist, is a pawn in Donald Trump’s grand caper, bouncing between his threats of economic chaos and acts of mercy. On April 9th all it took was a few dozen words from him, delaying some of his most extreme tariffs for 90 days, to transform a spreading panic in financial markets into a full risk-taking frenzy.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The court’s finest minds”