Trump’s tariffs leave us in the second worst of all worlds

Americans who support Donald Trump are celebrating his victories in the trade deals with the EU, Japan, South Korea and others. Meanwhile, many in those economies are angry at what they see as their leaders’ unilateral surrender. Both of these views reflect the same mistaken mercantilist thinking that motivated the US president to launch his extraordinary tariffs in the first place. The settlements leave us in the second worst of all worlds, but at least avoided the very worst: a full-on global trade war of escalating tariffs on all sides.