Larry Summers on Trump, Tariffs, and Threats to the Economy

Conversations with Bill Kristol

Where do things stand a month after Trump's “Liberation Day” tariffs and the announcements that have followed?

In a thoughtful and wide-ranging Conversation, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers shares his perspective on the economic and political consequences of the tariffs—and the threats to financial markets.

According to Summers, our difficulties now go beyond any individual economic policy pronouncement by the Trump administration: “The issue is becoming, in a meta sense, confidence in the United States. When people go in and out of being confident in you, that is alarming. It’s the kind of thing that in a developing country, you’d ask yourself whether they’re going to have to have an IMF program within a few months. We’re too big for an IMF program, but we're at risk of a major kind of a financial incident.” Warning that the administration already has “done a substantial amount of damage,” Summers argues that “we may work our way through this, but only if there’s very substantial alarm and very substantial reversal.”