An Autocrat’s Playbook

Trump’s Tariffs and the Road to Economic Chaos

An Autocrat’s Playbook is a politically timed work of political–economic nonfiction that frames Trump-era tariff escalation as a case study in economic nationalism—arguing it can destabilize U.S. growth, strain alliances, and accelerate global realignment. It’s written as an authoritative, historically grounded policy warning (more analysis than partisan polemic), with a documentary, headline-driven chronology that culminates in the legal fight over tariff authority.

“Whatever else defines this term, tariffs are the administration’s central economic weapon — and the costs are already showing up in prices, markets, and alliances.”

Biography

Jerry M. Rosenberg is Emeritus Professor of International Business at Rutgers University, where he received the university’s Distinguished Faculty Award. Over a writing career spanning more than six decades, he has authored more than thirty books, including two previous works on global recessions, with translations into Japanese, Russian, Czech/Slovak, Chinese, and Spanish. The New York Times has called him “arguably the leading business and technical lexicographer in the nation.” His honors include a Marshall Foundation Fellowship and three Fulbright Awards, and he has testified before the U.S. Senate’s Constitutional Rights Subcommittee and addressed audiences at the U.S. State Department. A visiting professor on multiple continents, Rosenberg brings a lifetime of economic chronicling to An Autocrat’s Playbook: Trump’s Tariffs and the Road to Economic Chaos, situating today’s trade wars within a century of recession history — from Smoot-Hawley to the Great Recession to COVID-19. He holds a BS from The City College of New York, an MA from Ohio State University, a certificate from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, and a PhD from New York University.