The World That Tariffs Will Make: A Conversation With Michael Froman

The Foreign Affairs Interview · Sep 11, 2025 · 52m

Donald Trump has been railing against the global economic order from the start of his political career. But in his second term as president, he has turned that critique into blistering action. In just five months, the trade war that started with his April tariffs has completely reshaped the global economy—and struck at the very heart of the trade system that emerged after the end of the Cold War.

To Michael Froman, the diagnosis is terminal. Froman, now the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, which publishes Foreign Affairs, served as the U.S. trade representative in the Obama…