Columbia Business School’s Glenn Hubbard, dean emeritus and professor of finance and economics, is cited in Project Syndicate for co-authoring a bold and targeted alternative to the Trump administration’s new tariff policies. Alongside Catherine Wolfram, Hubbard outlines a more effective approach to weakening Russia’s war effort by focusing on its fossil-fuel revenues.
Rather than imposing sweeping tariffs that risk harming U.S. consumers and global markets, Hubbard and Wolfram propose a “Russian universal tariff” (RUT)—a per-shipment fee applied to Russian oil and gas sales. This strategy would pressure Russia into genuine peace negotiations while leveraging the country’s dependence on energy exports. As the article notes, a $20-per-barrel tariff could yield up to $50 billion annually for the U.S., either incentivizing diplomatic progress or helping offset the global costs of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Their proposal is framed as a pragmatic, enforceable, and high-impact alternative to broader tariff measures criticized by both Democratic and Republican economists.
Read the full article: A US Tariff Idea That Makes Sense – Project Syndicate
