The forgotten consumer: How trade policy ignores the largest interest group

Trade policy, whether in the US or India, is made without taking the largest interest group into account

In the end, it was an incipient revolt in the bond markets that forced American President Donald Trump into a “90-day pause” in his campaign to impose tariffs on the entire world. According to a blockbuster story in the Wall Street Journal, the two members of his Cabinet with actual experience of the financial markets — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — cornered the President to warn him that the bond markets were approaching a meltdown. They chose a moment that Mr Trump’s most strident pro-tariff advisor, Peter Navarro, was not around to object — and