Beware of Trump 2.0’s trade policies

IF YOU didn’t like President Donald Trump’s trade policies during his term in office, assume that they won’t get better in his second term, if there will be one. Indeed, they are likely to get worse.

According to press reports, the former president, who is seeking a return to the White House after the 2024 presidential election, recently told a group of supporters that he was planning to enact a “universal baseline tariff” on virtually all imports to the United States.

This idea, said Trump, would create a “ring around the US economy”, representing what would amount to a massive escalation of a geo-economic war.