June 3, 2018

As if to telegraph his almost casual contempt for allies and rivals alike, Donald Trump let an octogenarian whom he mocked recently as “no longer a killer” fire the first shot in the trade war he declared last week.

The president, who has placed trade at the core of his “America first” strategy, sent out Wilbur Ross, 80, his commerce secretary, to reveal his shock decision to impose severe tariffs on the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Ross was in Paris, where last-ditch trade talks had failed, so he made Thursday’s announcement of a 25% tariff on steel and 10% on aluminium “effective midnight tonight” in a trans-Atlantic conference call with reporters in the US.

Read more:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/donald-trumps-trade-tariffs-threaten-allies-with-chaos-63ws0r2v0