Trump’s Steel Tariffs Raise Fears of a Damaging Trade War<br />“Whether we go through with his approach is anyone’s guess,<br />but business investment depends on predictable policy, and relentless chaos takes its toll even if cooler heads prevail on the policies that the president is tweeting about.”<br />Mr. Trump’s planned tariffs would, in effect, levy a tax of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum.<br />“That doesn’t mean that’s always wrong, but it usually is.”<br />Thea M. Lee, a trade economist and the president of the Economic Policy Institute,<br />a liberal think tank, said the tariffs could actually help global markets.<br />• The president appeared eager on Friday to defend his decision to levy sweeping tariffs, calling trade wars “easy to win.”<br />• Many economists say the opposite: that even the prospect of a trade war will hurt economic expansion.<br />Those leaders worry that Mr. Trump, by imposing stiff and sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum, will set off a trade war with other countries.<br />could declare that the tariffs violated global trading rules,<br />but the Trump administration, which has marginalized the organization, could choose to ignore it.<br />The tariffs would almost certainly provoke a response from America’s trading partners —<br />and not just China and Russia, because they would apply to every other country.
