The Great Trump Tariff Rollback

The President started a trade war with Adam Smith. He lost.

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"As with last week’s modest British agreement, the China deal is more surrender than Trump victory. Apart from the tariff rollback, neither side announced any broader concessions on the substantive trade issues that weigh on the U.S.-China relationship. Those include China’s barriers to American firms, especially in services such as digital and financial, and its chronic intellectual-property theft."

"One tragedy of Mr. Trump’s shoot-America-in-the-foot-first approach is that he’s hurt his chances of rallying a united front of countries against Beijing’s mercantilism. By targeting allies with tariffs, Mr. Trump has eroded trust in America’s economic and political reliability."

"The President’s concessions since his initial tariff announcements include: exemptions for goods from Canada and Mexico produced under the terms of the USMCA; a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs against everyone except China; exemptions on China tariffs for iPhones and electronics; the mini-deal with the United Kingdom; and now the 90-day rollback on China tariffs."

"markets have forced Mr. Trump to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new “golden age.”"