Soumaya Keynes & Chad Bown — How to Win a Trade War
Economists Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown break down the mechanics of trade conflict — what tariffs actually do, who bears the costs, and whether any country wins.
Why we picked this
Keynes covers global economics for The Economist and Bown spent years at the Peterson Institute modeling trade policy — this is the rare event where the people explaining trade wars actually understand them.
How to Win a Trade War arrives at a moment when tariff policy has become front-page news, and most public commentary on it is either cheerleading or catastrophizing. Soumaya Keynes, an economics editor at The Economist, and Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has spent decades modeling trade disputes, bring genuine technical depth to a topic that badly needs it.
The book examines the mechanics of trade conflict: how tariffs propagate through supply chains, which domestic industries benefit and which get hurt, how retaliation spirals develop, and whether any party in a sustained trade dispute actually comes out ahead. The answer, their research suggests, is usually more complicated than either side of the political debate acknowledges.
This Wharf event promises a conversation grounded in data rather than ideology. For anyone who has found themselves unable to evaluate the claims being made about trade policy — in either direction — this is an evening worth prioritizing.