Source: Cobden Centre
by Michael Froman
“One of the hardest jobs of a policymaker is to weigh trade-offs. Few policies are clean, absolute, and without costs. The art and science of policymaking often comes down to ensuring that the dots between different policy objectives are connected, and the trade-offs are accurately identified and assessed, as part of the decision-making process. Occasionally, policymakers find themselves managing inherent contradictions: the policies they choose to pursue to achieve one of their objectives make another one of their objectives harder or impossible to achieve. Now that the contours of the Trump administration’s trade policy are coming into greater focus — as initial draft frameworks for agreements emerge from the back and forth of escalatory and de-escalatory rhetoric and positioning — those contradictions are coming into stark relief.” (08/05/25)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2025/08/trade-offs-in-trumps-trade-policy/