An Autocrat's Playbook: Trump's Tariffs and The Road to Economic Chaos, A New Book from Rutgers Economist Jerry M. Rosenberg

Rosenberg traces a century of tariff policy, from Smoot-Hawley to today's fight over presidential power, a pattern that repeated again this month when twenty-five states sued to block the administration's latest attempt to work around the Supreme Court.

Los Angeles, CA , Aug. 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Riot House Publishing has released An Autocrat's Playbook: Trump's Tariffs and the Road to Economic Chaos, a documentary account by Rutgers University Emeritus Professor Jerry M. Rosenberg, PhD, of the legal fight over presidential tariff authority. The book is available now in trade paperback (ISBN 979-8996497607).

Rosenberg's central argument is straightforward: when a court blocks a tariff, the administration simply reaches for another statute. He built that case from the Supreme Court's February ruling that the president lacked authority to impose sweeping global tariffs, and from the temporary tariffs that replaced them under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The book's thesis has already been tested. On August 3, a coalition of 25 state attorneys general sued the administration over its newest tariffs, a 10 to 12.5 percent levy on goods from 60 countries imposed under Section 301 of the same 1974 act, one week after the Section 122 tariffs expired. The states argue the forced-labor rationale behind the new duties is a pretext to rebuild the global tariff regime the Supreme Court struck down. Independent trade economists have since made a related point, calling the new tariffs disproportionate to any forced-labor rationale that could justify them.

That sequence, a ruling, a new legal theory, a new tariff, a new lawsuit, is the spine of An Autocrat's Playbook. Rosenberg traces the pattern back to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, then forward through the Great Recession and COVID-19, arguing that today's trade war is ultimately a test of whether a president can substitute his own will for Congress's constitutional authority to tax.

“A tariff, the Court reaffirmed, is a tax,” Rosenberg writes. “And taxes are the business of the legislature.”

About the Author

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, translated into five languages. 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 the U.S. State Department.

About Riot House Publishing

Riot House Publishing is an independent Los Angeles press built on a simple premise: authors deserve a real partner, not a landlord. Founded by advertising executive Rick Rinker, Riot House publishes a small, hands-on list of five to six nonfiction titles a year at the intersection of entertainment, culture, and politics, for writers with something real to say about power and the institutions that wield it. Learn more about Riot House Publishing.

An Autocrat's Playbook: Trump's Tariffs and the Road to Economic Chaos is available now in trade paperback from Amazon, Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers. Review copies and interview access to Dr. Rosenberg are available to media on request.

###

For more information, visit Riot House Publishing at:
https://riothousepublishing.com

Rick Rinker, Riot House Publishing
press@riothousepublishing.com
323-515-7670