Will Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ be the start of a trade war – or another climbdown?

After myriad false starts and much fluctuation, the lingering question is not how far Trump can take his trade wars, but how far he will

Donald Trump won back the White House with a promise to transform the US economy. Millions of Americans, struggling with higher prices and bigger bills, elected a president who pledged to revive his country's industrial heartlands - and leave the rest of the world to pick up the bill.

On Wednesday - a day dubbed Liberation Day by the president and his aides - Trump has vowed to pull the trigger and impose an historic barrage of tariffs on goods from overseas he claims will fund an extraordinary revival.