“Trade wars are good, and easy to win” — or so tweeted President Trump in March 2018. But the president's trade wars are, in fact, proving difficult and costly. China, India, Canada, Mexico, Turkey and the European Union have all chosen retaliation over capitulation. So whereas the president has agreed to restart trade talks with Beijing, he is no longer pledging easy victories. Instead, he is doubling down on the idea that trade wars are good in and of themselves.
“Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal deal of the traditional kind,” he tweeted in May. China, he said, was paying “hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs.” He even claims that tariffs somehow boosted first-quarter U.S. output growth.
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