MSNBC — Larry Summers, Former U.S. Treasury Secretary, joins Andrea Mitchell to analyze President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China. Summers highlights the grave impacts these tariffs will have on the American consumer and families. READ MORE
Trump’s tariffs are a bully strategy, my conversation with Manu Raju on CNN’s Inside Politics
POLITICO Morning Money — “Unrealistic macroeconomic cheerleading usually backfires because it’s associated with bad policy and because it undermines credibility,” former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told MM. “This administration, given the self-inflicted supply shocks to the economy it is implementing, very much has that risk. Its inflationary errors are at risk of exceeding those of the Biden administration.” READ MORE
My interview on February 1, 2025 with Jessica Dean of CNN on how Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada defy economic logic.
The Harvard Crimson — Harvard’s settlement last week of two lawsuits alleging antisemitic discrimination surely does not represent the end of overdue efforts by the University to combat antisemitism. To amend Winston Churchill at a key juncture during World War II, it does not even represent the beginning of the end of the University’s efforts to right the ship after the failures of the last academic year. But it may — if our leaders act with boldness — be seen as the end of the beginning of the University’s restoration. READ MORE
FT — Hello and welcome to The Economic Show. I’m Martin Wolf, the FT’s chief economics commentator in London. While our regular host, Soumaya Keynes, is on maternity leave you’ll be hearing a lot more from me over the coming weeks. Today, I have the pleasure of talking to someone who has uniquely been a hugely distinguished academic, a top official, and a highly influential voice on global economic affairs. He’s also somebody I’ve known since the mid-1990s when he joined the US Treasury.
I’m talking, of course, about the former United States Treasury secretary and president of Harvard University, Larry Summers. His signal characteristics are his originality and moral and intellectual courage. This combination is why he has sometimes upset people. It is also why he’s so influential. Larry, welcome to the show. READ FULL TRANSCRIPT
Harvard Gazette — President-elect Donald Trump’s longstanding plans to hit China with stiff tariffs would likely deal a blow to China’s already faltering economy, but it could also trigger some unintended negative consequences for the U.S. economy and foreign relations, economists say.
Trump warned last week that on his first day back in office he will impose 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and an additional levy of 10 percent on Chinese imports. (He said during the campaign he would hit China with tariffs of 60 percent or more.) He said the nation’s largest trading partners need to take swifter, harsher action to halt the flow of illegal migrants and drugs into the U.S. READ MORE
Interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s GPS where we discussed how the Trump program, if literally implemented, would be a far larger stimulus to inflation than anything President Biden enacted.
My conversation on economic policy before and after the election with John Ellis at the Harvard Institute of Politics.
New York Times — “I think Trump has a problem in that he wants two different things,” said Lawrence H. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration. “He wants somebody who will be deeply loyal, and he wants someone who will be deeply reassuring to markets. Since markets are fearful of the tariff agenda, it’s hard to square both things.” READ MORE
The title of Thursday’s “Forum” at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard was “Economic Policy Before and After the 2024 Election.”
We (meaning he) talked about that at some length. But he also talked about the gathering storm in Europe, the spirit of public service, the crisis of the academy, the 350-foot bridge that took five years to fix, and the perils and promise of artificial intelligence (Prof. Summers is on the board of OpenAI).
I’ve always thought the best podcast or YouTube video interview was one that featured a very smart person talking about very interesting subjects. By that standard, this is a great podcast/YouTube video.
That warning proved to be prescient. Price spikes engulfed the US economy, crushed consumers and forced the Federal Reserve to spike interest rates to multi-decade highs. Inflation became issue No. 1 for voters and helped send Donald Trump back to the White House.
Now, with many celebrating the apparent defeat of inflation, Summers is delivering another warning to Washington. READ MORE
