Sherrod Brown on Trump’s Tariffs and the Future of Economic Populism

The Political Scene | The New Yorker

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🗓️ 9 April 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

The former senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the tumult that Trump’s tariffs have inflicted on the global economy, and why progressives should not merely oppose the President’s trade policy but offer a clear alternative. “I've heard economists talk about these tariffs upending the global order on trade. Well, to a lot of workers, anything’s better than the global order on trade. It’s our policy problem as a country, and it’s our political problem for Democrats,” Brown says. They also discuss his latest project, The Dignity of Work Institute, a think tank dedicated to advocacy for the working class.

This week’s reading:

“‘I Am Seeing My Community of Researchers Decimated,’” by E. Tammy Kim
“The Other Side of Signalgate,” by Rozina Ali
“The Trump Show Comes to the Kennedy Center,” by Katy Waldman
“At the Smithsonian, Donald Trump Takes Aim at History,” by David Remnick

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Senator. Thanks so much for being here. Glad to be here. Thank you, Tyler. Would you say that tariffs, as a general concept, are beneficial for the American working class?
0:11.0	I think it's clear that there are more than two choices, either sort of the NAFTA, permanent normal trade relations with China, or one choice, the other being sort of reckless, some
0:22.9	scatterbrain tariffs, there is another way to have a trade policy that works for workers.
0:28.5	So the goal of trade policy, fundamentally the goal of trade policy is to level the playing
0:33.2	field for American workers, and we really have never done that.
0:41.6	Thank you. field for American workers, and we really have never done that. That's former U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
0:44.4	He was able to hold on to his Senate seat in Ohio for almost 20 years, a Democrat in a Republican
0:50.3	stronghold, in part because he often broke with the rest of his party on the issue of
0:54.9	free trade. And that's exactly why I wanted to talk to him this week. President Donald Trump's
1:00.4	tariff's plan, which is currently on pause, has been wildly controversial. But we all know what the
1:06.4	pro-free trade arguments against this plan look like. Brown, a progressive who was supported a version of tariffs in the past, talk to me about the
1:14.7	problems he sees with Trump's plan, the ways in which certain tariffs might actually be used
1:18.8	to protect American workers, and his new project, the Dignity of Work Institute, a think tank
1:24.4	dedicated to advocacy for the working class.
1:27.3	You're listening to the political scene.
1:29.6	I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.
1:38.8	So it's Tuesday morning, and the stock market actually seems to be rallying today, which is a bit of a surprise.
1:44.8	But more generally, we have seen the global economy spiral in the wake of Trump implementing tariffs on some 90 countries worldwide.
1:52.6	Senator, you have long been anti-nafda, and during your time as a Democratic senator from Ohio, you talked about how Democratic support for free trade has hurt workers in the Rust Belt and has eroded trust with working class voters. So what do you make of Trump's
2:04.9	tariffs program so far and its implementation? What would you say is wrong with it? Is there
2:09.5	anything? Are there any silver linings? There are there are not two choices. In trade policy,
2:15.7	there is not the sort of neoliberal, whatever corporate
	...

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