The Week Magazine April 18, 2025

In the wake of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariff extravaganza, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the unfair trade practices that I’ve tolerated too long in my own life. Take my trading relationship with Amazon. For more than two decades, I’ve been sending money to Jeff Bezos’ online megastore and in return I’ve received all sorts of products: books, diapers, dish soap, fidget spinners, and a storage unit’s worth of tools for never-completed DIY projects. While it’s true that I wanted or needed all those goods, Liberation Day has woken me up to a big problem: that Amazon has never once bought or even asked about buying something from me. Trump’s commerce commandments mandate that both parties must exchange an equal amount of physical goods, lest that…

What happened President Trump abruptly halted his plan to slap so-called reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries this week, a stunning turnaround that came just 13 hours after the levies went into effect. Trump upended global trade last week by announcing he would institute a 10 percent tariff on most imports and place additional tariffs of up to 50 percent on 86 trading partners, including Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Japan, and the European Union, over their “unfair trade practices.” Markets plunged in the days that followed, wiping out an estimated $10 trillion in value. But stocks surged after Trump announced on social media that he was pausing for 90 days the added tariffs on most countries—but keeping the 10 percent baseline—citing openings for dealmaking and rising concern about the economy.…

As other countries line up to negotiate with the Trump administration, China is girding for a trade war, said Lily Kuo and Christian Shepherd in The Washington Post. And Beijing “believes it has the upper hand.” Chinese officials “have long said that a trade war will only hurt the American economy,” and the market turmoil of the past week and cracks in support for Trump’s tariffs “have further cemented that view,” say China experts. So, as Trump ratchets up his tariffs, “Beijing is betting it can stare him down with a simple strategy: retaliate, then sit back and wait.” It leaves the world’s top economies “locked in a rapidly escalating trade war” that could “push their rivalry to a new level of confrontation.” That means “pain is coming for…

What happened The Supreme Court ruled this week that the Trump administration may continue deporting migrants—for now—under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. The 5-4 decision lifted a D.C. federal judge’s block on Trump’s use of the law, which the president invoked last month to send three planes full of Venezuelan migrants suspected of gang activity to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. The narrow ruling was made on a technicality; it did not address the legality of using the law, but held that any challenge must be brought in the jurisdictions where detainees are being held—in this case, Texas rather than Washington, D.C. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in dissent, although all nine justices agreed that the government may not summarily handcuff and deport immigrants…

■ Brad Schofro’s golden retriever, Zoie, startled him when she began barking at the front window of his Lebanon, Tenn., home—unusual behavior for a calm-tempered dog. Zoie had seen that a toddler had just walked into a neighbor’s driveway. In fact, the child had wandered away from his home and had been reported missing just a few minutes earlier. Zoie went viral after Schofro posted about her on Reddit, where one commentator wrote, “Dogs truly have that sixth sense when it comes to protecting the vulnerable.” ■ At 47, Melanie Barratt recently achieved a Guinness World Record as the first blind woman to swim across the English Channel. Born able to see only colors and shapes because of congenital toxoplasmosis, she medaled in gold and silver as a freestyle…

“Money can buy a lot of things,” said Allison Morrow in CNN.com. The $288 million Elon Musk spent to help elect President Trump and other GOP candidates, for instance, secured him a job heading the previously nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency, with apparent authority to fire 280,000 federal workers and shutter entire agencies. But money can’t buy all things, as shown by the “parade of humiliations” Musk suffered in the space of 24 hours last week. First, Wisconsin voters rejected the conservative judge whom Musk spent $25 million trying to install on the state Supreme Court. Hours later, Tesla reported a 13 percent sales slump, its largest drop ever. Soon after, anonymous White House insiders told Politico that Musk had “overstayed his welcome in Washington,” and President Trump told…