The deck to the article should give you a good idea of the thesis: "The Trump administration’s obsession with trade threats, tariffs, and bullying both allies and rivals into submission was based on an ambitious theory. It turned out to be a fallacy."
Major economies are big, complex entities. Trying to tinker with them on the fly, as Trump has done, is a recipe for disaster. Change must be careful and incremental. Trump's solution is nihilistic -- shove everything on the floor and see what happens.
His "solution" to slap tariffs on all imports from China is nothing short of moronic. Tariffs are used, if at all, to protect domestic industries, but when the US lacks many industries that China has, tariffs will end up being a very painful and expensive tax.
I suspect more Americans are not paying attention to this slow-motion disaster in the making because the severe pain that comes with tariffs has not yet been felt. The big China tariffs kick into place at the end of this month. Look for prices to spike after that.
One could be reassured in thinking this problem will go away once Trump leaves office in, hopefully, a little more than a year. But the reality is that aftershocks from this may last a decade or more.
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