Originally posted in the Financial Times (link below to non-paywalled archive):

 

"If it endures, Donald Trump’s decision on April 2 2025 to enact sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners will go down as one of the greatest acts of self-harm in American economic history. They will wreak untold damage on households, businesses and financial markets across the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped to create.

 

and

 

"Trump’s justification hinges on a naive belief that treats trade imbalances as if they were the profit and loss account of a business, and not the culmination of highly specialised supply chains. He also considers factory work to be the fount of economic development, ignoring how decades of free trade has enabled America to rise up the industrial value chain and become a global leader in services and innovation."

 

https://archive.is/Xqq9m

This needs to be qualified. Its not self harm as Trump and cronies will stand to benefit from back door deals with unscrupulous leaders of the countries worst hit with tariffs (Cambodia, Lao, Vietnam). The real loser is the American consumer.  But just wait til the penguins take reciprocal revenge. Then Americans will really know they backed the wrong horse in their election. 

Inside Trump’s defiant response to the markets’ tariff meltdown

 

 

After a day and a half of mixed messages from Trump and top administration officials over whether the tariffs were the start of a negotiation or a more permanent change to US economic policy, Trump didn’t use Friday to deliver clarity. He didn’t venture out into the country to sell his plan from the floor of an American factory or to showcase a business or community that he believes will benefit from the tariffs.

Instead, the president chose to begin his day on the golf course in Florida.

The whole of Europe hates trump and looking elsewhere for products ,yes act of self harm ,pity about Harley sales

His name is now toxic in the UK and probably all of Europe,