Trump's predictably ruinous strategy in the trade war

What is he even trying to do? Trump himself probably doesn't even know.

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst, vicnt/iStock)

President Trump's trade "policy," if we can call it that, is continuing pretty much exactly as one might have suspected. On Monday, China announced a new series of tariffs in response to Trump's levies on steel and aluminum. The White House responded Tuesday with new tariffs on some 1,300 specifically Chinese goods. China then hit back Wednesday by slapping tariffs on a bunch more American products, most of them agricultural. So far, the overall trade volume of affected goods is not too large, and most of the tariffs haven't taken effect yet. Thus, after the markets plummeted at Wednesday's opening bell on escalation fears, they eventually recovered on the assumption that the White House would pull back.

I wouldn't be so sure that it will. There is no clear negotiating strategy from Trump — indeed, no sign that he even knows what he wants, much less how to achieve it. There's a serious risk of a trade war that will escalate indefinitely.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.