Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Most Americans do not pay attention to the intricacies of economic cycles until change impacts them directly. That is exactly what is happening today, causing angst among voters and a feeding frenzy of “who to blame?”
Just go to fill up your car with gas and you feel the impact. In two weeks in March, prices shot up an average of 22 percent, and today the average price of gas per gallon is $4.67 with some states exceeding $5 a gallon. Americans are not only feeling it at the gas pump; they see inflation for groceries, utilities and travel as overall inflation is near a 40-year high.
There are many causes for the current situation but undoubtedly the Russian invasion of Ukraine is impacting the world economy in profound ways. The International Monetary Fund has slashed its expectations for global economic growth for the next two years as a direct result of the invasion. The effects are spreading through the economy on multiple fronts as supply chain problems are becoming more and more obvious in our everyday lives – witness the recent baby formula shortage.
One can’t help but wonder where this all ends. We have economic cycles (growth and contraction) all the time, but is there something different occurring that will fundamentally change how the world economy functions? Governments and multinational corporations are re-assessing the risk-reward dynamic of global economic interdependence.
Most would agree that Russia and China are the two biggest threats to the West in geopolitical terms, yet they are also two of the world’s major commodities producers. This results in substantial risks. The disruption in oil and natural gas prices is directly related to policies Western nations have taken in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The inflation we are feeling extends to food prices as Russia and Ukraine combined account for 20 percent of the world’s wheat production.
How we react as individual citizens and as a nation to the humanitarian crisis will impact our daily lives even though we are far removed from the horrors suffered by Ukrainian citizens. Will we allow ourselves to be economically blackmailed by totalitarian regimes at the expense of our principles? Will we tolerate higher prices at the pump and in the grocery store because we are standing up for the principles of democracy? Or would we succumb to authoritarianism that promises to cost less to us, personally?
As we live through the impact of our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we should be mindful about the ramifications if China were to take military action in Taiwan and the United States were to take similar economic actions against China – or military action, as President Biden has suggested and later retracted.
The globalization of the world economy has been expanding at an ever-increasing rate for the last four decades. The advancement of technology has broken down barriers allowing for a free exchange of goods and services. Yet this inter-connectivity comes with dependency upon nations that do not share our principles of freedom and human rights; they are not our friends. This dependency is what must be analyzed.
The benefits have been many, including lower prices for goods and commodities, but our love of a bargain has blinded us to the risks, or even deluded us into thinking that the economic interconnectivity will naturally result in greater cooperation on issues not related to economics, like expanded citizen rights.
The challenges of the last three years starting with Covid, and the war in Ukraine has called into question the efficacy of the continued globalization of the world economy. As supply chain problems continue and geopolitical events spin beyond our control, more and more Americans are concerned about the vulnerability our national economy faces. Yet the question remains: What price we are willing to pay to protect and defend democracy around the world.
It is our willingness to protect the democratic values we cherish that comes into play alongside our willingness to protect the planet. Statistics show that an increasing number of Americans fear the impact of global warming; at the same time we are impacted by $5-a-gallon gas. These points of tension may result in adjusting priorities as to the pace at which our nation weans itself from fossil fuel.
There is no doubt that the events of the last three years are resulting in a rethinking about the dangers of the long-term trend of ever-increasing globalization and integration of world economies. While it is too early to say where this will all end, a strong case can be made that the result will be a fundamental rewiring of the global economy by multinational corporations and by governments. It is critical that those empowered to make these important economic decisions have a moral and ethical framework based on economic justice and opportunity to ensure that changes benefit society as a whole and not just those in power. As citizens we should make sure our voices are heard.
Already the redeployment of assets by American companies has occurred as corporations like McDonalds, Starbucks, Netflix, Disney, Shell and Exxon have suspended operations in or completely cut ties with Russian markets. As the war continues, the list grows. Businesses and the markets respond poorly to uncertainty. The extent of the changes – the rewiring of the global economy – cannot yet be ascertained, there is no doubt that both businesses and government are questioning the old rules.
Weighing the risk of globalization versus benefits of a more nationalistic approach in terms of the ability to control one’s own destiny and our ability to adhere to democratic principles that we hold dear must be reevaluated so we can make critical decisions with rational thinking and less reactivity.
The complexity of the shift extends beyond the boardroom to politics as anti-establishment populism sweeps the world. Questions of national sovereignty, control of our own destiny and immigration all play into a reevaluation of the balance between nationalism and globalization. This will unfortunately play to racist and xenophobic tendencies, exacerbated by conflict profiteers and result in increased fear and hatred.
A reevaluation of globalization must assess the economic risk and rewards and also must question the role globalization plays in perpetuating inequalities if our nation does not adapt socially and economically to the rapid changes resulting from world interconnectivity.
Or perhaps, my desire for reevaluation is overstated and this is simply a normal economic cycle during extraordinary times. When we look back on this moment in history, we’ll be better informed to know if we made the right decisions at the right time. Or we’ll look wistfully on the challenges we face today, wishing we’d made better choices.
Only time will answer this.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.