ECONOMY/TARIFFS/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Who isn’t President Donald Trump targeting with a trade war? China is the front line, clearly. But he’s played tough with Mexico, Canada, the European Union and even India. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, has evaded his ire, but Tokyo also hasn’t yet agreed a trade deal with the US. He’s emboldened by an incredibly resilient US economy he claims as valediction. The newest tariffs he’s imposed on Chinese goods are not a drag on US consumers, but rather in the service of a better bargaining position for a trade deal, which he’ll deliver at some point, he hopes. The trade war with China is ‘a little squabble.’ Trump’s reality with regard to China, which he explained to reporters at the White House Tuesday, might be more believable if China were the only nation with which Trump was tangling. Far from it. Nothing happens in a vacuum. While China has already raised tariffs on US exports. Mexico is preparing to retaliate against US tariffs and the EU is said to be weighing its options. Trump’s trade war is bigger than China; it’s a multi-front world conflagration in which Trump is the aggressor, picking fights with world leaders and the US Congress as he foists his nationalism onto the rest of the world, sending shock waves through the global economy.”
–Zachary B. Wolf, “Trump to world: ‘You’re tariffed!’,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 14, 2019 9:41 pm