Donald Trump has put aggressive trade policy at the centre of his approach to the economy. No other economic subject has received such sustained presidential attention or generated so much controversy.
This is problematic as most economists agree that changes in trade policy are unlikely to have a big effect on growth in employment or over gross domestic product and that liberalising trade is likely to do more for US prosperity than managing trade.
But take as a given the US president’s mercantilist premise that the central priority of American economic policy should be achieving more fairness in opening up markets around the world. Even given this dubious judgment about ends, the US is proceeding in a remarkably unstrategic and ineffective way. Indeed it is violating almost every strategic canon.