Brian Crombie Radio Hour - Epi 1436 - Trump, & Tariffs with Dr. Anders Aslund

Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian interviews Dr. Anders Aslund about Trump and tariffs. Anders is a leading specialist on the East European economies, especially Russia and Ukraine. He is presently a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum. From 2015 to 2021, he was a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center with a dual appointment in its Global Business and Economics program. From 2006 to 2015, he was a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC. He also teaches at Georgetown University. He served as an economic advisor to several governments, notably the Russian government (1991-4) and the Ukrainian government (1994-7).Anders criticizes US economic policy, particularly the tariff strategy, which he described as arbitrary, aggressive, and lacking a theoretical basis. He argues that the tariffs, which effectively function as a regressive sales tax, are being paid by Americans and are contributing to rising inflation. Anders also contends that the US does not have a significant trade deficit when services and intellectual property are included, and he criticized Trump's approach to foreign investment and job creation as misleading and unfounded.Anders discusses the concerning trend of American institutions and businesses complying with Trump's policies without significant resistance. Anders highlighted the worrying increase in the federal government's power over universities, media, and research funding, and emphasizes how Trump's approach to media censorship mirrors and even surpasses that of Vladimir Putin. He states that the United States is sliding into a gray zone of limited freedom, with Trump systematically using defamation laws to silence critics, while the country's ranking in press freedom has dropped significantly.