Trump’s Tariff Fiasco Could Save Free Trade

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs have raised prices and hurt businesses without reducing the trade deficit or creating manufacturing jobs. But global trade has held up better than expected, and growing public opposition to tariffs could pave the way for a retreat from protectionism. WASHINGTON, DC—In the nearly two years since he returned to the White House, US President Donald Trump has picked up where he left off in his first term, shredding the open multilateral trading system that has served the world so well since the end of World War II. He has imposed sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries, repeatedly raising and lowering them and changing rates on individual goods and countries, seemingly on a whim. As a result, US tariff rates are now higher than at any time since the Great Depression’s Smoot-Hawley tariffs.