In the week since President Donald Trump declared a trade war against every other country on the planet, American investors have lost a tenth of their savings, the market in US government debt has begun to wobble, and the newspapers are suddenly full of credible explanations why, once tariffs are applied to manufacturers in China, your next smartphone could cost you $3,500.
Is Trump right to be doing this? It depends on what you mean by “right.” He’s right in the sense of having a mandate to carry out a protectionist trade policy, since he talked almost non-stop during his presidential run about how “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the English language. He’s right in the sense of having ample reason to question free trade—a half-trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, massive inequality, and an industrial base so flaccid that, three years into the Russo-Ukrainian war, we are losing an arms race against a country with a tenth of our military budget. But whether Trump is right in the sense of knowing what the hell he’s doing is a more difficult question.