President Donald Trump’s much-anticipated tariffs on steel and aluminum take effect today. If economics is thought of as warfare, then tariffs are a bit like bio-weapons: clumsy, imprecise and, worst of all, contagious. Almost immediately after you [Trump] announced your tariffs, the European Union warned that it would slap penalties on American bourbon. That is exactly how trade wars escalate.”China, the supposed target of American ire, is only our fourth-largest steel supplier, after Canada, Brazil and South Korea. It excluded China specifically to counterbalance Chinese trade power in the region and targeted intellectual property protection as a primary objective.

Source: Forbes March 22, 2018 20:40 UTC