Trump’s Tariff Fantasies Risk Economic Pain and Global Peril

The U.S. President is economically illiterate.

It gives me no pleasure to write that, given the implications. But it is undeniable at this point. The leader of the world's largest economy truly believes that mutually beneficial trade doesn't exist, and that any trade, whether between individuals or nations, must involve one party taking advantage of the other. He believes there must be a winner and a loser in every transaction. He believes having a 'trade deficit' with another country means that country is somehow tricking the United States, even though the balance of trade represents American companies and consumers willingly entering into trade relationships with others.

But no matter how strongly Donald Trump believes these things, he's wrong.