Six months ago Donald Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs — huge tariffs imposed on just about every nation. As everyone noted, this announcement suddenly brought average tariffs back to 1934 levels. Less widely noted was the fact that the long decline in tariff rates over the previous 90 years had been achieved through many rounds of international negotiations, in which the U.S. and other nations solemnly agreed not to backtrack on past tariff reductions. So Liberation Day was, among other things, a massive betrayal of the world’s trust.
Now Trump is learning, to his obvious shock, that other nations can also play trade hardball. His reaction to China’s new export controls on rare earths, which are crucial to digital technology, would be comical if the stakes weren’t so high:
