Donald Trump er på forsiden på The Economist igjen, og ikke på den bra måten. Selvfølgelig er han det etter den totalt selvdestruktive og temmelig vilkårlige innføringer av høye tollsatser mot alle USAs handelspartnere. "Liberation Day" kalte Trump denne dagen. "Ruination Day" er navnet The Economist har gitt denne markedagen, med en tilhørende lederartikkel de har kalt "President Trump’s mindless tariffs will cause economic havoc." Der skriver de at:
"It’s hard to know which is more unsettling: that the leader of the free world could spout complete drivel about its most successful and admired economy. Or the fact that on April 2nd, spurred on by his delusions, Donald Trump announced the biggest break in America’s trade policy in over a century—and committed the most profound, harmful and unnecessary economic error in the modern era."
The Economist, som har en lang og stolt historie når det gjelder å argumentere for global frihandel, og mot toll og handelshindringer, er helt opprørt over hvordan Donald Trump ikke forstår at den øknomomiske depresjonen i mellomkrigstiden skydtes datidens ødeleggende høye toll, og ikke fravær av toll. De skriver at:
"Almost everything Mr Trump said this week—on history, economics and the technicalities of trade—was utterly deluded. His reading of history is upside down. He has long glorified the high-tariff, low-income-tax era of the late-19th century. In fact, the best scholarship shows that tariffs impeded the economy back then. He has now added the bizarre claim that lifting tariffs caused the Depression of the 1930s and that the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were too late to rescue the situation. The reality is that tariffs made the Depression much worse, just as they will harm all economies today. It was the painstaking rounds of trade talks in the subsequent 80 years that lowered tariffs and helped increase prosperity."
