The Price of Going It Alone: From Nazi Autarky to Trump’s Tariff Wars
Japan, long one of America’s most reliable allies and the number one foreign investor in U.S. manufacturing, is furious. And they have every right to be. The 25% automobile tariffs recently announced by Donald Trump are more than just a trade policy, they're a diplomatic insult and a strategic blunder. Japan’s government has warned of serious consequences, not just for U.S. - Japan relations, but for the global economy and the multilateral trading system that has helped prevent large-scale conflict for nearly eighty years.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been diving into the history of authoritarian regimes—Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Putin’s Russia, Orban’s Hungary, and Erdoğan’s Turkey. My focus has been less on their ideologies and more on their sustainability. How long do these regimes actually last? How durable is their grip on power, and what ultimately brings them down? (Spoiler: not as long as they imagine.) Naturally, this led me down a series of long, dark rabbit holes, one of which was the concept of autarky—an economic strategy based on national self-sufficiency, where trade is minimized and domestic production is prioritized, often as a show of strength or sovereignty. Historically, autarky tends to look powerful in the short term—but it rarely ends well.
This isn’t just about car exports. Japanese media and officials are now openly discussing the need for a foreign policy no longer anchored to the United States. The pivot is unmistakable. One commentator compared it to a tectonic shift, Japan, like Europe, is beginning to prepare for a world where American leadership is unstable, erratic, and perhaps not worth depending on.
None of this should come as a surprise. Trump’s approach to foreign policy has never been based on partnership. His treatment of allies has always been transactional, contemptuous, and fueled by grievance. But this latest episode opens the door to a broader conversation, one that history warns us not to ignore.
We’ve seen this before.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany pursued a similar economic philosophy known as autarky. Faced with economic collapse and national humiliation after World War I, Hitler’s regime promised to restore German pride through self-sufficiency. The state began to sever trade ties, replacing imports with synthetic substitutes, and redirecting the economy toward militarization. Germany’s leaders claimed this was about independence and strength, but in truth, it was a cover for isolationism, repression, and conquest. They weren’t building an economy—they were building a machine for war.
Autarky gave the illusion of prosperity. Unemployment fell, public works projects boomed, and industrial output soared on paper. But underneath it all was corruption, coercion, and unsustainable debt. The system only worked as long as Germany could plunder new territories, seize new labor, and dominate its neighbors. When the expansion stopped, so did the illusion. By 1945, the economy lay in ruins, along with much of Europe.
Trump’s “America First” agenda isn’t called autarky, but it follows the same logic. Tariffs and trade wars are framed as acts of national defense. Allies are recast as economic rivals. Global cooperation is painted as weakness. His supporters are told that decoupling from the world is the path to strength, that the United States is being “taken advantage of,” and that only through isolation can we restore our former greatness.
But it’s not true. It never is.
What Trump’s policies actually accomplish is the erosion of alliances that have kept the peace since World War II. Japan doesn’t just trade with us, it hosts the largest U.S. military footprint on Earth. It’s a cornerstone of our deterrence against China in the Indo-Pacific. It supports over a million American jobs, nearly half of them in the very industrial sectors Trump claims to protect. And yet, he antagonizes Japan as if it were an enemy, while cozying up to authoritarian leaders who actively work against U.S. interests.
This isn’t strategy. It’s sabotage.
And just like in the 1930s, it’s China who benefits. With the U.S. retreating from its leadership role, Beijing is moving quickly to fill the void strengthening ties with Japan and South Korea, and expanding its influence across Asia and beyond. This shift isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now, in real time. We are watching the fruits of decades of diplomacy be handed over to a rival superpower because one man can’t grasp the value of cooperation.
Trump doesn’t build. He breaks. He undermines institutions, dismisses expert advice, alienates allies, and destabilizes systems without ever offering a coherent alternative. He speaks of “liberation day” as though chaos will give birth to a new world. But history shows us the opposite. Economic nationalism, when paired with military bravado and cultural scapegoating, leads not to strength but collapse.
Autarky is not resilience. It is rigidity masquerading as pride. And in a global economy as interconnected as ours, rigidity breaks quickly and brutally.
Japan’s anger should serve as a warning. Our credibility is fraying. Our leadership is in question. And our future as a democratic power depends on whether we choose to lead through shared progress, or continue down the path of destructive nationalism.
Because this time, if we fall for the illusion of autarky again, we won’t have the excuse of ignorance. We’ve seen this movie before. We know how it ends.