Papal elections and tariff troubles: history behind the headlines

Hello and welcome to our monthly series History Behind the Headlines. I'm Matt Elton. In each episode, an expert panel will be exploring the historical news stories that have caught their eye and the history that will help you make sense of what's going on in the world. Each month I'll be joined by our two regular panellists. I'm Hannah.

I'm fellow and tutor in medieval history at St. John's College in Oxford. I'm Rana Mitter. I'm ST Lee Chair in US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, and I'm a specialist on modern Chinese history. So we're kicking off this month with a subject you are unlikely to have missed in recent weeks, which is the subject of tariffs.

The US has been making global waves with the announcement of high tariffs on goods from around the world, some of which at the time of recording have subsequently been paused. I'm delighted to say that to guide us through some of this, we're joined by Frank Trentman, who is Professor of History at Birkbeck University of London. Frank, thank you so much for being with us today. Great to talk to you. We spoke at the end of March for a separate History Extra podcast on the history of tariffs.

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