Being a leader in the times of tariffs – Telegraph

Kristina Nano

In every era of history, there has come a moment when the fate of peoples has depended no longer on the balance of markets, but on the quality of leaders. In our era, this moment has come in the silent but dramatic form of the return of tariffs. With the decision of US President Donald Trump to restore tariffs as a tool of economic protectionism and diplomatic pressure, the world has entered a new phase of international relations, where the economy is no longer a free space for exchange, but a front for geopolitical warfare. And this is not just an American issue. It is a global paradigm shift that requires a new model of leadership, especially in small, peripheral and fragile countries like Albania.

In the world of classical ideas, tariffs were temporary instruments for protecting domestic production. In modern times, they were a sign of exhausted protectionism. But now, in this era that is taking shape beyond the textualized playbook of globalization, tariffs have become instruments of sovereignty, prestige, and pressure.

President Trump is not simply using tariffs to protect the American economy. He is recasting the world order according to the principle of bare national interest. He is writing a new version of Hobbes for the 21st century, where the state is once again “Leviathan” and the global order is a natural state of amoral competition, where only the strong survive. In this new world, any country that lacks economic, military or diplomatic power is forced to find in its leader what it cannot find in its weight in the global order. The leader as architect of national gravity. In this sense, the leader of a small country like Albania can no longer be a budget manager, nor an administrator of concessions, much less a figurehead for electoral spectacles. He must be an architect of national gravity.

A creator of weight that a small country does not have from history or economics, but that it can gain from the clarity of position, institutional seriousness and the capacity to maneuver wisely in a fragmented world. Carl Schmitt taught us that the sovereign is the one who decides in a state of emergency. Today, the entire Albanian leadership is in exactly such a state of challenge: a world that is being stripped of rules, where the great powers are retreating into protectionism and where the EU is losing its political coherence. In this situation, the sovereign is not the one who promises roads, salaries and parks, but the one who thinks about the geopolitical structure of his nation, who formulates balanced positions, who builds bridges between powers, who foresees major movements and prepares the people for them. From transactional leadership to transformational leadership? In modern literature on leadership, James MacGregor Burns distinguishes two types of leaders:

– Transactionalists: those who bargain with people, give to take, govern to win votes.

– Transformatives: those who inspire, lead with vision, and build a political culture that survives their departure.

In times of tariffs, the transactional leader is dangerous. He will seek to make quick deals, to win support through subsidies, to buy peace through debt. But this is the path to dependency and state decomposition. Albania needs a transformational leader who:

– Builds economic independence through industrial vision, not through concessions that depend on the future.

– Establish diplomatic balances that are not shaken by a visit or a photograph.

– Protects the national interest without falling into empty nationalism.

– And, that gives the people the feeling of participating in a shared historical project, not just in another election campaign.

When Rousseau wrote about the social pact, he emphasized that in every republic, true sovereignty resides in the general will, not in the name of a leader. But in the age of tariffs, when great powers use the economy as blackmail, small states need leaders who do not subject the general will to fear and pressure. Albania is a country that does not have the luxury of absolute neutrality, but it does have the opportunity for strategic ingenuity.

This means:

– Let’s build a sustainable economic model.

– To create relationships with values, not short-term interests.

– To define an Albanian strategic identity in the coming world, where we are more than a point on the map, we are a stance.

Michel Foucault said that power does not reside only in institutions, but in the way people think and live reality. Therefore, a true leader does not just build roads. He builds strategic culture. He teaches the people to think in terms of historical awareness, positioning, real sovereignty and common purpose. In this world where Trump’s tariffs may become the new global standard, Albania is not simply facing a financial crisis or difficult diplomacy. It is facing the need for a true renaissance of leadership, a leader who is not a consequence of elections, but a precursor of the coming era; a leader who does not use division to reign, but unity to lead; who does not imitate the great to stand out, but invents himself to stand with dignity in a harsh world.

The age of tariffs is the age of global uncertainty, but also the small chance for small nations to create weight through wisdom. It requires leaders who understand the philosophy of world order, who read the times, who think beyond the mandate and look beyond themselves. To be a leader in this time is to be a strategist, philosopher and architect of your nation’s destiny, in a world that no longer forgives you for naivety. Because in the age of tariffs, you either become a thinker of your nation, or remain a notary of foreign interests.