2025.15: Liberation and Whiplash

Hello! And welcome to a new feature called “This Week in Stratechery.” Each week, on Fridays, we’re going to be putting together a digest of everything that’s been released in the Stratechery Plus universe, and highlight a few of our favorite podcasts and articles. We’ll also, for free subscribers, unlock at least one paid Update or podcast — look for the highlighted links.

We’ve been publishing TWiS in beta since the beginning of 2025 — the archives are here — and now we’re live. We’ll publish every Friday, and you can control your delivery settings on your account page.

On that note, here were a few of our favorites this week. — Andrew Sharp

1. The Realities of Reindustrialization. It’s been a dizzying ten days for Americans and the entire world, and even after the Trump White House on Wednesday abruptly paused its plans for a global, “reciprocal” tariff regime, there remains plenty of volatility swirling through the markets (and, ahem, a 145% tariff rate on all Chinese imports). In the midst of the uncertainty, I enjoyed Ben’s article on “American Disruption”: it was a clear-eyed look at what sort of manufacturing should and should not be brought back to the U.S., why the Liberation Day tariffs would be disastrous and counter-productive policy, and what considerations must be accounted for by anyone who’s trying to reorder the system we’ve had for the past 40 years. — AS
   
   
2. A Complicated Future for Apple. Multinationals all over the world are facing big questions, and Tuesday’s Daily Update was a good glimpse into the challenges ahead for the biggest multinational of them all. Tim Cook’s ability to optimize supply chains and straddle the relationships between the governments of United States and China has been by far his strongest attribute as CEO, and as Ben wrote, the weeks and months ahead will be “an opportunity to every dime of his paycheck.” Along these lines, and as context for every other global trade debate you encounter this week, I highly recommend the Sharp Tech deep dive into Cook’s history of building out Apple’s supply chain in China as a keystone to understanding tech manufacturing in Asia more generally. — Daman Rangoola
   
   
3. The Other Side of the Trade War. With regard to the tariffs not paused on Wednesday, this week’s episode of Sharp China focused on the Chinese posture in the wake of trade war escalations that were likely never modeled for by Xi Jinping and the PRC. Among the topics: state countermeasures being mooted on the Chinese internet, why CCP leadership may believe that their system can withstand more pain than that of their U.S. counterparts, and an unsettling lack of clarity as to what the PRC could offer to allay American concerns and deescalate tensions. I can’t promise this episode is the most relaxing weekend listening, but it’s great insight into the dynamics that could define the next few months and years of the US-China relationship. Also: we’re outside the paywall this week, so everyone can check it out below. — AS

Stratechery Articles and Updates

• An Interview with Google Cloud Platform CEO Thomas Kurian About Building an Enterprise Culture — An interview with Google Cloud Platform CEO Thomas Kurian about Google’s infrastructure advantage and building and enterprise service culture.
• American Disruption — A new take on Trump’s tariffs, including using a disruption lens to understand the U.S.’s manufacturing problem, and why a better plan would leverage demand, not kill it.
• Apple’s China Problem, Apple in the Short Term, Tech’s Complement Risk — A focus on the tariff’s impact on Apple specifically, and how Apple itself contributed to China’s technological development.
• Trade, Tariffs, and Tech — There is an argument for the Trump tariffs, but the risks are too great relative to the uncertain rewards.

Dithering with Ben Thompson and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber

• Tariffs and Taiwan
• Apple and China

Asianometry with Jon Yu

• How the EUV Mirrors are Made
• The Tariff Paradoxes of Latin America and Asia

Sharp China with Andrew Sharp and Sinocism’s Bill Bishop

• The Unraveling is Accelerating; Post-Escalation Options for the PRC; Trump Goals and EU Possibilities; Another Maddening TikTok Development

Greatest of All Talk with Andrew Sharp and WaPo’s Ben Golliver

• Cooper Flagg and the Duke Collapse, Hard Cap Cup Check and West Mayhem, Ime Udoka Against the World
• Luka Doncic Returns to Dallas, The Path Forward in Denver, Defensive Player of the Year

Sharp Tech with Andrew Sharp and Ben Thompson

• American Disruption, Tech’s Manufacturing History in Asia, The Power of Demand in an Uncertain Future

The latest Stratechery video essay is about Why Monopolies Buy Innovation.