30 MAY-JUNE 2026 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Not all presidents have this understanding. For example, Herbert Hoover and FDR: Though highly experienced in world affairs, each fumbled crucial opportunities to end the Great Depression. Hoover plunged ahead with the protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariffs even after the steep stock market collapse and the onset of the depression. FDR sabotaged the 1933 World Economic Conference, ridiculing international cooperation while he adopted an uncontrolled dollar depreciation to boost U.S. prosperity at the expense of other countries. What Is Required Rebuilding a functioning international economic system is likely to be very challenging. The United States will need to formulate and skillfully implement an astute and comprehensive policy toward China, a more daunting economic challenger than the former Soviet Union was. China and the United States each have sought to weaponize economic interdependence. China leveraged its stranglehold over rare earth minerals to pressure the U.S. policy. The Biden and Trump administrations have tried to keep sensitive semiconductor products and technology away from Chinese firms. We will also need to test whether China will decide to destroy an international economic system based on broadly shared values or recognize that it can gain by collaborating with the United States and other countries on a system that works for all. The United States will need to protect itself where we have economic vulnerabilities and maximize our economic strengths. We need to be the country in which the world’s best and brightest want to study and work. We need to strengthen our world-class research capabilities. We need to rely on competitive markets rather than state capitalism. We need to devote intellectual energy and resources to retraining and supporting those whose jobs and communities are disrupted by economic change. Developing countries must have a place in a refurbished global economic system. A U.S. development strategy should recognize the centrality of economic growth, open markets, and foreign investment. And the goal of development should be to expand individuals’ freedom to live the sort of lives they value. Democracy, good government, reasonable health care, and education are all fundamental to development. Coercive tariffs are major obstacles to a well-functioning global economic system. The costs of tariffs are borne mainly by the end-users of imported goods. The cost of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, for example, are borne mainly by industries that heavily use steel and aluminum as inputs, notably producers of automobiles and farm machinery made in the United States. And as every soybean farmer in America knows, when foreign countries retaliate against U.S. tariffs, such retaliaSpeaking Out is the Journal’s opinion forum, a place for lively discussion of issues affecting the U.S. Foreign Service and American diplomacy. The views expressed are those of the author; their publication here does not imply endorsement by the American Foreign Service Association. Responses are welcome; send them to journal@afsa.org. tion inflicts an additional cost on the targeted industry. Tariffs on imports also have economic effects that are nearly identical to taxes on exports. American import tariffs weaken America’s most internationally competitive industries. High tariffs will make the U.S. economy weaker and less productive. When the United States tries to use tariff policy to tip the commercial playing field in our favor, it creates an un- stable international economic system. Our major trading partners will intensify economic relationships with each other and avoid economic relationships with us. The United States represents less than a quarter of world trade. Over time, tariff policy can isolate the country. Rising to the Challenge The current international economic system may limp along for several years without a caretaker. But sooner or later, calamity will arrive, as it did for my parents’ generation during the Great Depression and World War II. For State Department professionals, the current era of disorder can be discouraging. Sooner or later, however, changed circumstances will permit a new international economic order to be created. When that time comes, America will need the skillful work of State Department professionals. Large challenges have a way of summoning greatness. America’s “greatest generation” was not born into greatness, like entitled royalty. Rather, the pressure of difficult challenges hardened them into diamonds. My hope and expectation are that the greatest generation of professional American diplomats has yet to arrive. n
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=