Liberal democracies should be looking to increase economic co-operation, not shooting themselves in the foot by erecting trade barriers

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Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump is fond of bragging that he didn’t start a war during his first stint in the White House, but if he follows through on his threat to hike tariffs to levels not seen in nearly a century, he risks sparking a massive trade war that could be devastating — not only for the global economy, but for the entire free world.

Trump’s first term saw him use tariffs, or the threat thereof, to gain trade concessions from his allies, but his main target was the People’s Republic of China, which the president correctly recognized as a fascist dictatorship intent on using its economic muscle to further its geopolitical goals long before most world leaders.

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This is a policy that has largely been continued by the Biden administration, but it has come at a significant cost to American consumers. A June report from the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank, found that Trump’s tariffs constituted “one of the largest tax increases in decades,” and that, combined with those instituted under President Joe Biden, they amount to a tax hike of US$625 (C$868) a year for the average American household.

But those tariffs will pale in comparison to what Trump plans to do if he wins next Tuesday’s election. In recent months, he’s been........

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