One year into Donald Trump’s second term, the global economic order is being given a facelift that wouldn’t look out of place at his Mar-a-Lago beach club. The President has turned his famous penchant for tariffs—“the most beautiful word in the English language”—into an agenda for national rejuvenation, imposing them on allies and enemies alike. Stunned commentators have made various attempts to interpret the sweeping trade restrictions: as a break with the US role in superintending world capitalism, a tool to bully individual states into signing favorable deals, or a mindless assertion of raw power. Yet there is still no consensus about either the nature of this shift or its long-term implications.
Some have sought answers in the work of Trump’s former economic adviser Stephen Miran, now member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, whose…
