Donald Trump has declared a trade “war” on the 28 nations of the European Union, as well as Canada and Mexico.
This protectionist binge will be suicidal for consumers, workers, and corporations.
It will cause rapidly rising inflation in consumer prices; loss of employment in many industries and agriculture; and add billions of dollars in costs to corporations, which will lead to price increases and worker layoffs.
Along with the massive backtracking on the Dodd-Frank Act regulating Wall Street banks after the Great Recession of 2007-2009, it will bring about another Great Recession in the next year, and possibly worse, a return of the conditions of 1929 under Herbert Hoover, leading to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, and a great worsening of the Great Depression that affected America for an entire decade.
It will also cause the NATO alliance to fray at its edges, as the European allies, and particularly the major ones–Great Britain, France, Germany–will retaliate against the nation that they used to look to as their leader.
And our relations with our neighbors–Canada and Mexico–will be the worst in a century, and undermine global security and stability.
And the Republican Party, while complaining privately, will show no ability to stand up to Donald Trump, and fight him, and their party will be permanently damaged by their cowardice!