Justin Fox, Columnist

Asking for a Friend: How Does a Country Regain Credibility?

The Trump administration desperately needs to shore up a weak negotiating position. History offers some lessons.

April 14, 2025 at 8:55 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

The poster board that started it all.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

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The best argument for the massive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on “Liberation Day” has always been that they were the beginning of a negotiation. “Escalate to de-escalate,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is fond of saying.