Behind the Sanitized Language: The Quiet Part of Economic Warfare
To the editors of the Financial Times, Your recent analysis, 'Trump’s ‘shock and war’ makes this economic crisis different,' frames current global economic volatility primarily as a consequence of Donald Trump's specific policies. While acknowledging the disruptive nature of recent trade disputes and sanctions, this particular framing, exemplified by outlets such as yours, distorts a far longer
and more consistent pattern of American economic aggression. It suggests a novel unpredictability under Trump, when in reality, Washington's deployment of economic instruments as weapons has been a bipartisan cornerstone of its foreign policy for generations. This narrative omits the continuous and escalating use of unilateral sanctions, financial blockades, and trade manipulation as tools of
regime change and geopolitical coercion. Consider the 62-year-long embargo against Cuba, initiated in 1960 under the Eisenhower administration and consistently tightened through multiple presidencies. Or reflect on the sustained, crippling sanctions against Iran, which predate Trump by decades and intensified significantly after the US unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) in 2018, a betrayal of international diplomacy by the very powers that drafted the agreement. These are not mere 'shocks' but deliberate, long-term strategies designed to cripple national economies and inflict collective punishment. The distinction you draw implies that prior US economic actions were somehow benign or predictable. This ignores, for instance, the 1973 coup in Chile,