The Great Trade Policy Hack | Steven Davis, Richard Baldwin | Hoover Institution

Richard Baldwin joins the podcast to speak with Steve about Trumpian Trade Policy, its underlying political logic, its lack of economic coherence, and its consequences for the American and global economies. They also discuss economic and political forces that led to the current protectionist moment in US trade policy, and whether it will endure. Finally, they outline four scenarios for the future international trading system and what it means for US economic fortunes and geopolitical influence.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Richard Baldwin is Professor of International Economics at IMD Business School and Editor-in-Chief of VoxEU, an innovative online platform that publishes short, accessible articles grounded in recent research in economics and political economy. Previously, he held faculty appointments at the Geneva Graduate Institute and Columbia Business School. He also served as Senior Staff Economist at the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

Steven Davis is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Hoover Institution, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). He is a research associate of the NBER, IZA research fellow, elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists, and consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. He co-founded the Economic Policy Uncertainty project, the U.S. Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, the Global Survey of Working Arrangements, the Survey of Business Uncertainty, and the Stock Market Jumps project. He also co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. Before joining Hoover, Davis was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, serving as both distinguished service professor and deputy dean of the faculty.

RELATED SOURCES

• The Great Trade Hack: How Trump’s Trade War Fails and the World Moves On by Richard Baldwin, 2025
• The Globotics Upheaval: Globalization, Robotics, and the Future of Work by Richard Baldwin, 2019
• “Destructive Trade Policy” by Steven Davis, April 2025
• Trends in the Distribution of Household Income from 1979 to 2021, U.S. Congressional Budget Office, September 2024
• "Dollar Dominance: A Conversation with Ken Rogoff", Economics Applied podcast, 11 June 2025
• VoxEU columns
• At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House by H.R. McMaster, 2024