Note: The description and link to RealEcon’s listening tour report in the earlier version of the newsletter were incorrect. I apologize for the error. The correct description and link are included below.
—Matthew P. Goodman
Dear RealEcon readers,
“Liberation Day” has arrived. As this newsletter is being prepared on the morning of April 2, it appears that President Donald Trump will proceed with an announcement of broad-based tariffs later today. The move will likely be the largest U.S. tariff action since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which imposed 20 percent tariffs on most imports and contributed to the Great Depression. Whether Trump’s announcement will be as consequential remains to be seen.
As it happens, April 2 is also the one-year anniversary of the Council on Foreign Relations’ RealEcon Initiative. We noted at last year’s launch event that this multiyear, multifaceted initiative was designed to assess the role of the United States in the international economy, analyze what is at stake for the American people, and identify the trade-offs in different policy approaches. To achieve the goal of a more durable consensus about American economic leadership, we argued that it was important to start by listening to what Americans think about the subject. That led my RealEcon colleague Allison Smith and me on a nine-state tour around the United States in 2024 to ask more than four hundred local officials, workers, students, and others what they thought about trade, foreign aid, and other policy issues our initiative is exploring. At the links below, you can read our report on the tour and watch the March 25 event at which we discussed its findings and takeaways.
Meanwhile, CFR fellows continue to put out innovative and influential analysis of the policy issues being tracked by the RealEcon Initiative. In this edition of RealEcon, we include several new pieces on trade, as well as a primer by our new Greenberg Center Research Fellow William Henagan about the elements of the pending reauthorization of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), which both the Trump and Joe Biden administrations have identified as an important tool of U.S. economic statecraft.
On this first anniversary of the RealEcon Initiative, I want to say a special word of thanks to our readers of this newsletter and to all who have offered invaluable input and insight to us along the way. I am grateful for your support, welcome your feedback, and encourage you to stay involved as we move forward into our second year.
—Matthew P. Goodman, Director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Director of the CFR RealEcon Initiative
