By Andrew Domanskis | Opinion Essay
As I prepare to graduate with a master’s degree from Thunderbird, I cannot help but notice the contrast emerging between my globally-oriented education and the world I enter, which is increasingly marked by nationalism, strained international alliances, and growing trade barriers. In the 100 days since President Trump retook the White House, the word “tariff” has moved from economic obscurity to dominating headlines and dinner table conversations with no foreseeable end in sight. The imposition of the highest tariffs in over a century of American history has sent a seismic shock through global markets, triggering trillions in equity losses across industries. These tariffs, levied under the guise of reciprocity on allies and geopolitical adversaries alike, seem a component of a broader populist sentiment Trump embodies—a push for deglobalization. Having already manifested itself in cuts to foreign aid and the disavowing of long-established international treaties, this push has extended well beyond his contentious trade policy. Collectively, Trump’s actions could be seen as a notable shift away from the established post-World War II liberal international order, in which the United States and other countries actively sought to strengthen their economic and political ties. It was during this period of rapid globalization post-World War II that Thunderbird as an institution was founded in 1946, uniquely positioning itself with a similar belief in global integration and as a champion of cultural diversity. Today, this founding ethos feels antithetical to Trump’s political doctrine and emblematic of a world order he seems intent on dismantling. His tariff policy, a risky economic gamble with an uncertain endgame, seems to be a tool in his larger reorientation of American power away from multilateralism and toward zero-sum nationalism.
Trump’s tariffs, while unconventional today, are not entirely without historical precedent. From the days of Alexander Hamilton until a permanent income tax was introduced in 1913, tariffs represented 80-90% of U.S. federal revenue. As the income tax grew to reflect a higher percentage of government revenue, tariff rates steadily declined in the early 20th century until 1930, when the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act brought them surging back to historic levels. Similar to modern tariff justifications, proponents of the Act argued that the higher levies would help safeguard American farmers and manufacturers from foreign competition. Yet, instituted at the start of the Great Depression, the Smoot-Hawley tariffs catalyzed a series of trade wars which worsened economic conditions globally, arguably exacerbating the political extremism that preceded the Second World War.
It was not until the world found itself engulfed in global conflict that a fundamental shift in international trade policy became imminent. In 1944, with battles still raging in Europe and the Pacific, 44 nations sent delegates to the small village of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Together, they established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and each agreed to adopt a U.S. dollar-based exchange system. The consensus shared by these nations—to promote global economic and political integration as a way to avert conflict and build shared prosperity—would become known as the Bretton Woods system. With a similar global embeddedness in mind, the United Nations (UN), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), later becoming the WTO, were established within the same five-year period following World War II. The GATT, which aimed to reduce global tariffs and other barriers to trade, was finalized around the same time Thunderbird was founded in 1946. This trade agreement, as an extension of the Bretton Woods system, bears a striking resemblance to Thunderbird’s institutional vocation. “Borders frequented by trade seldom need soldiers,” as original Thunderbird faculty member, Dr. William Lytle Schurz, famously stated. This quote encapsulates the school’s Bretton Woods-esque belief in the power of globalization to produce long-lasting, sustainable global peace. My first time hearing this quote, I was an unknowing freshman in Thunderbird’s undergraduate program at the height of the pandemic. Today, it seems to reflect a kind of global orientation that is fading in Trump’s America.
The cracks in the original Bretton Woods system, however, began to appear many decades ago. Namely, a key aspect of the monetary framework established at Bretton Woods was supplanted in the “Nixon Shock” of 1971, when President Nixon ended the U.S. dollar’s convertibility to gold. Yet, the underlying spirit of postwar internationalism continued to roar through the 1970s, with the G7 and World Economic Forum being established just a few years later. The neoliberalism of the 1980s saw globalization accelerate further, with previously isolationist nations like China increasingly benefiting from the unencumbered free trade of liberalized markets. As the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended, Russia, too, eventually heeded calls to globalize. But unfortunately, the world’s rapid economic integration was not without its share of unwelcome consequences. In 1997, a surge in foreign investment combined with poor financial oversight catalyzed the Asian financial crisis. Although China, a nation less affected than some of its neighbors, continued to see a normalization of trade relations with the West through the late 90s, particularly after its official entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Today in 2025, President Xi Jinping of China recently described “globalization [as] an unstoppable historical trend” in response to Trump’s tariffs. But perhaps it is the case that in the last decade in particular, there are two channels of globalization emerging simultaneously, with Russia, China, and other BRICS nations increasingly strengthening their economic and political ties, while leaving their Western counterparts behind. This fractured globalization seems to mirror the bipolarity of the Cold War—not quite reflective of the integrated internationalism envisioned 80 years ago at Bretton Woods.
Now, as Trump has retaken the White House in 2025, he seeks to put a final seal on this upending of the post-World War II international order. Recently, this upending seems more like a stated policy of the Trump administration, rather than speculation. In an interview with the Manhattan Institute last June, Trump-appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked, “I could see in the next few years … some kind of grand global economic reordering, something on the equivalent of a new Bretton Woods.” Secretary Bessent’s dreams of a global trade reordering seem well underway today as 10% baseline tariffs have already taken effect, with higher reciprocal levies being “strategically delayed” for 90 days. These higher levies can potentially be avoided, Bessent has argued, if countries successfully renegotiate their trade terms with the U.S. in the 90-day window. In this “Art of the Deal”-esque approach, the tariffs effectively seem to act as leverage, forcing countries to lower their own trade barriers and grant the U.S. greater access to their markets. Some Republican pundits have gone as far as to term this grand economic bargain the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” as a sort of Bretton Woods 2.0. And while it is true that American exporters often face unfavorable trade terms abroad, is forcing trade capitulations with our allies truly a sustainable path forward? At the same time, whether this leverage-based approach even reflects Trump’s true strategic aim is difficult to discern.
Trump himself has repeatedly argued that tariffs will help drive domestic investment and bring back manufacturing jobs. Followers of U.S. politics will be quite familiar with Trump’s assertions that unfair international arrangements have disadvantaged the U.S., while “hollowing out American industry.” An often invoked example is NAFTA, which Trump and his allies argue created a labor arbitrage, shifting components of the supply chain to places like Mexico and Canada, away from the American heartland. By imposing tariffs, they aim to make it more difficult for foreign-manufactured goods to be sold in U.S. markets, which is expected to drive the reshoring of manufacturing. Statistically, it is true that manufacturing jobs dropped from 35% of the private sector in the 1950s to around 10% today. Although this rationale for tariffs seems to discount the massive gains in productivity and standard of living that accompanied the U.S.’s shift to a more service-based economy following decades of globalization. Economists argue that these changes cannot be easily undone, and even if protectionist tariffs were the solution, they may yield other issues. As President Ronald Reagan elucidated in 1987, “when companies start relying on the government protection of high tariffs, they stop competing and stop making innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.” Tariffs could be seen to cut the U.S. off from the rest of the world, creating a dynamic that many argue looks more “America Alone” than “America First.” This policy seems dichotomous to the ‘borders frequented by trade’ ethos ingrained in Thunderbird and the established global order, which underpinned many decades of U.S. hegemony.
Many Americans likely agree that improving supply chain resiliency in certain key areas, like semiconductors, energy, and pharmaceuticals, is desirable for national security. However, one must wonder if tariffs are truly the best way to achieve these outcomes. The market does not seem to think so. While Trump’s economic nationalism may have delivered a red wave at the ballot box last November, it is doubtful the sea of red in financial markets was an intended corollary. Someone must pay the burden of tariffs, and it seems unlikely to be the overseas manufacturers of goods. This has not stopped some proponents of tariffs, however, from arguing that a stronger economy is on the other side of this ‘short-term’ turmoil. Some have claimed that tariffs can fund GOP tax cuts, which, along with deregulation and government spending cuts, could create a stimulatory and budget-conscious economic environment. Others have asserted that tariffs could help raise federal revenue to service a burgeoning national debt, or even be a strategic ploy to force down long-term treasury interest rates to refinance more favorably. Suffice it to say, the strategically incoherent messaging has not helped alleviate any of the financial market’s concerns. Whichever one of these strategic aims the Trump administration is ultimately pursuing, the tariffs’ far-reaching implications “could trigger a recession, or worse,” as recently described by leading hedge fund manager Ray Dalio.
The economic turmoil seems to have been largely dismissed by Trump’s cabinet, with Bessent describing it as “a Mag7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” seeming to suggest tariffs impact the “Magnificent Seven” or the seven largest U.S. corporations more than the generally working-class Americans of the Republican party who are argued to be less likely to own significant assets or hold investments in equity markets. And while a 2020 study from the Brookings Institution confirms that the Republican electorate has increasingly shifted to include more working- and middle-class voters from less wealthy counties, there is no doubt that 401(k)s and pensions were affected by the tariffs. Perhaps it is the case, however, that Americans who are struggling financially found solace in Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, where ‘globalism’, as Trump terms it, becomes a sort of natural scapegoat for economic hardship. After years of above-average inflation and the decades-long offshoring of supply chains, Trump’s blaming of what he perceives as unfair international treaties and agreements may seem compelling for less wealthy, disproportionately affected Americans. A salient example of Trump’s anti-international orientation is his ongoing calls to get Europe to “pay its fair share” in military defense spending vis-a-vis the Russia-Ukraine conflict. A recent Wall Street Journal poll showed 81% of Republicans agree that “U.S. allies haven’t shouldered enough responsibility for their own defense and that the U.S. should stop using tax dollars to defend them.” In contrast to this, 83% of Democrats described international alliances as being a source of strength and something that should be supported with tax dollars. Trump’s foreign policy, echoing these underlying party sentiments, seems increasingly U.S.-focused, transactional, and non-interventionist. A far cry from the Bush militarism of the 2000s, this platform seems reflective of a broader shift in Republican policy that Trump has catalyzed—a prioritization of national interest, both political and economic, over internationalization.
In the 80 years since World War II, the United States has gone from a stabilizing force in the global order to an agent of its unraveling amid President Trump’s total reset of established trading norms. And while there is a compelling case to be made that globalization created market imbalances and weakened domestic industries, imposing tariffs indiscriminately seems a blunt and economically risky antidote. The Bretton Woods system may have been imperfect, and the dream of unfettered free trade exaggerated, but it seems unlikely that elevating our own trade barriers is the correct solution. However, uninhibited by concerns of re-election, Trump is now freer to enact radical policy than ever before. As I begin law school in the fall, I carry forward Thunderbird’s founding vision—believing in the power of international cooperation to foster peace and shared prosperity in an increasingly divided world. At the same time, I recognize that borders should be frequented by trade that is fair and equitable, not just free—a balance that history has too often failed to achieve. Let us hope the future trade landscape is defined not by uneven progress, but by a mutually beneficial fairness which still holds highest the perennial value of open exchange.