WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump rocked the economy with an unprecedented attack on global trade in April, the plan was dismissed as swaggering, capricious and unsustainable. Market meltdowns and price increases would teach the White House the true cost of its mistakes, economists warned.
Yet, four months later, Trump is largely getting his way, refashioning the global economic order around his long-standing worldview that the United States has been ripped off for decades — all before the economy can fully absorb the shock.