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Meanwhile, what's happening with the trade war? I don't think we know. But I've been doing some background work, and realizing that what we're doing now is pretty much unprecedented. Until Trump, there were almost no trade wars in US history 1/
Of course, we had a lot of protectionism. But I would only call that a trade war when tariffs are imposed as part of a deliberate attempt to hurt other countries, and force them to make concessions.And we've hardly ever done that 2/
Before FDR created the Trade Agreements Program, US trade policy was basically insular/isolationist. We were gonna do what we were gonna do, and not worry about foreign reactions. Smoot Hawley wasn't an attempt to punish anyone, it was just stupid 3/
Since FDR and Cordell Hull, the US has been a defender of a rules-based system that was designed, among other things, to prevent trade wars. You can tell how rare they were by the fact that we're still talking about the "chicken war" of 1964 4/
By the way, that war never ended -- we still have the 25 percent tariff on light trucks we imposed in an attempt to force Europe to take our frozen chickens 5/
But now Trump has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions' worth of goods in an attempt to hurt China and others, and force them to change policies – and the Chinese have retaliated in ways designed to cause pain here, and induce us to back off. 6/
This is really new to the US, and maybe for the world as a whole. We've really entered a new world of trade policy – and if you think the key players have any idea what they're doing, I have some Trump Steaks you might want to buy 7/
