Trump’s Steel Tariffs Raise Fears of a Damaging Trade War

Trump’s Steel Tariffs Raise Fears of a Damaging Trade War
“Whether we go through with his approach is anyone’s guess,
but business investment depends on predictable policy, and relentless chaos takes its toll even if cooler heads prevail on the policies that the president is tweeting about.”
Mr. Trump’s planned tariffs would, in effect, levy a tax of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum.
“That doesn’t mean that’s always wrong, but it usually is.”
Thea M. Lee, a trade economist and the president of the Economic Policy Institute,
a liberal think tank, said the tariffs could actually help global markets.
• The president appeared eager on Friday to defend his decision to levy sweeping tariffs, calling trade wars “easy to win.”
• Many economists say the opposite: that even the prospect of a trade war will hurt economic expansion.
Those leaders worry that Mr. Trump, by imposing stiff and sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum, will set off a trade war with other countries.
could declare that the tariffs violated global trading rules,
but the Trump administration, which has marginalized the organization, could choose to ignore it.
The tariffs would almost certainly provoke a response from America’s trading partners —
and not just China and Russia, because they would apply to every other country.