Mar-a-Lago Membership Fees Help Explain Trump’s Tariff Obsession

Last July, just before Donald Trump’s first and only debate with Joe Biden, a team from Bloomberg Businessweek traveled to Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump about his plans for the economy if he returned to the White House. Our 90-minute discussion spanned all the major topics: tax cuts, deregulation, China, the Federal Reserve and the fate of Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Afterward, as we were leaving, our team compared notes about what we’d learned and what had most surprised us. In the latter category, everyone was struck—and frankly a bit puzzled—by how eager Trump had been to talk ...