Paul Krugman

1

Cronyism, Capitulation and Utter Chaos

And what the hell was Scott Bessent doing briefing Morgan clients?

Hitting the road today, but I have time for a note on the news that moved markets yesterday. Bloomberg reports:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a closed-door investor summit Tuesday that the tariff standoff with China cannot be sustained by both sides and that the world’s two largest economies will have to find ways to de-escalate.

That de-escalation will come in the very near future, Bessent said during an event hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase in Washington, which wasn’t open to the public or media. He characterized the current situation as essentially a trade embargo, according to people who attended the session.

https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/cronyism-capitulation-and-chaos?r=3azmy&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Trump Is Insatiable

The president is trying to pick off institutions (and people) one by one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/trump-harvard.html?smid=em-share

Millions of dollars are being thrown at loneliness. But many of these start-ups aren’t even targeting the right problem, @fhill_official writes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/04/friendship-start-ups-success/682518/?gift=yGKGqaI9BMfIDuch_TrGYXSd7_iUfHFaQPFeNW1RTX8&utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

“These days I find myself rooting for the Democrats about 70 percent of the time,” @nytdavidbrooks writes of his migration to a new political party. “But my new suit is ill-fitting. I’m still not fully comfortable as a Democrat.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/10/trumpism-republican-party-exile-david-brooks/680243/?gift=yGKGqaI9BMfIDuch_TrGYVSMb20N-h1f1oV-6FVTD9g&utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

“Republican lawmakers are now preparing to lavish ICE with a colossal funding increase,” writes @NickMiroff. It will fund the “social and demographic transformation of the United States that immigration hard-liners have long fantasized about achieving”:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/ice-deportation-funding-increase/682480/?gift=yGKGqaI9BMfIDuch_TrGYUoM36PZ1Iy2R7WyJS7MUjo&utm_source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social

Another Group the Democrats Should Stop Taking for Granted

Trump didn’t just defy the assumption that his demonization of immigrants would cost him Hispanic voters; he turned those expectations upside down.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/opinion/trump-latino-hispanic-vote.html?smid=em-share

Thomas B. Edsall

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

During the 2024 campaign, Donald Trump portrayed Hispanic immigrants as “rapists,” “bloodthirsty criminals,” “animals,” “stone cold killers,” the “worst people” and the “most violent people on earth.”

Myah Ward of Politico reported on Oct. 12, 2024, that “the former president has escalated his xenophobic and racist rhetoric against migrants and minority groups he says are genetically predisposed to commit crimes.”

Trump’s language, Ward continued, “is a stark escalation over the last month of what some experts in political rhetoric, fascism and immigration say is a strong echo of authoritarians and Nazi ideology.”

Less than a month later, Trump set a record for a Republican presidential candidate, winning 46 percent of the Hispanic vote, 18 points more than the 28 percent he received in 2016 and 14 points more than his 32 percent in 2020.