Zoom on Your Own/The Implications of Trump's Economic Policies

This class is Zoom on your own at home.

In his famous “Four Freedoms” speech, the third of FDR’s “four essential human freedoms” was “freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.” 89 years after FDR spoke these words, here in 2025 are Americans enjoying freedom from want? Does the answer to this question depend on one’s life station on important dimensions such as educational attainment? And, either way, are current U.S. economic policies reducing want or expanding it—both here in the United States and around the world?

On the one hand, generative artificial intelligence is being heralded as a historic new foundational technology that will unleash innovation across all industries and thus usher in rising standards of living. On the other hand, the economic walls that America is building against the rest of the world—most vividly with the “Liberation Day” tariffs announced in early April, the breadth and scale of which have not been seen since the Great Depression—have sparked widespread consternation at home and condemnation abroad. This talk will examine important economic forces and policies to understand what all this means for American workers, families, and communities.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR: Matt Slaughter is the Paul Danos Dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where in addition he is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Strategy Group, and an academic advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Now in his third term as dean, Matt has helped strengthen the Tuck School with a widening array of programs that transform lives by creating trust-based, data-informed learning communities—all of which has contributed to Tuck’s recent rankings that are among its highest ever. Matt’s area of scholarly expertise is the economics and politics of globalization. Much of his recent work has focused on the global operations of multinational firms, on the labor-market impacts of 2 of 4 globalization, and on public policies to build economic opportunity. From 2005 to 2007, Matt served as a member on Council of Economic Advisers in the Executive Office of the President. Matt regularly contributes op-ed columns and longer essays to leading global publications and is a regular guest on many TV and radio programs. And through Congressional testimony and other forums he works, as a lifetime independent, with leaders of both parties.