Journalists have always had a tendency to treat Donald Trump as a gold medalist in some kind of Olympics of Stupidity. But even for them, the trade war he has fitfully waged over the last two weeks has been dazzling in its illogic and arbitrariness. He has imposed tariffs, both on China and on his country’s nearest neighbors and closest allies. Then called them off. Then reimposed them.
Sowing ill will, repelling investors, decimating the 401(k) plans of those who once thought it was a good idea to vote for him, Trump appears to most newspapers readers as a mad king, or as the crazed naval captain Humphrey Bogart plays in The Caine Mutiny—someone from whom control ought to be wrested, and soon.
Interesting info on the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency pro and con among other things.
