Supply Lines

Trump Ditches Economic Statecraft for the Power Politics of War

Economic arm-twisting with tools like tariffs showed its limitations

President Trump walks toward the White House after arriving on Marine One on March 1.

Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

With the launch of his war against Iran over the weekend, President Donald Trump reaffirmed that he was taking the world into a new era of power politics. He also, though, looks to be closing a chapter on another — the era of economic statecraft.

For a large part of the past decade, the world of security and economics has been focused on the use of economic tools in geopolitics.