The Guardian view on Trump’s trade wars: making a bad situation worse | Editorial

Donald Trump has channelled the anger felt by globalisation's discontents to serve an agenda in line with elite interests

Donald Trump's decision to launch trade wars against all five of the United States' closest commercial partners has brought depressingly predictable responses. China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union have all countered with tariffs on US products. The US economy is the biggest in the world and can deal with many of the responses, which are a pinprick on its giant heft. However, Mr Trump's political base is vulnerable - and the retaliating quartet have responded with actions designed to hurt communities that voted for the US president. This entirely foreseeable response confirms that trade is something he cares deeply about but also knows little about.

It does not help that Mr Trump is a narcissist with no time for the subtleties of global diplomacy. He is meeting European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker for talks on Wednesday. He calls the EU a "foe" because of its $101bn trade surplus with the US. A sensible solution for Washington is one that it vetoed when John Maynard Keynes proposed it in 1944: countries with surpluses ought to spend their extra money in deficit countries, thus boosting both private spending and export capacity. It is ironic that Mr Trump is attempting something similar by bullying rather than through what might have been achieved by multilateral arrangements. The president is happy to be swinging a wrecking ball at the world trading system. But it has been swung before. The US has been squabbling with partners who have had trading surpluses for decades. All American leaders understand that foreign nations have a great deal to lose from sanctions, imposed by Washington, that limit access to the huge US market. Because sanctions are determined unilaterally, there is little that countries can do to resist a claim that they have cheated their way into American markets.