Liberation and Its Discontents (Michael Froman, Council on Foreign Relations)

When future generations ask how the rules-based international economic order came to an end, I’ll tell them that it happened slowly and then all at once. The final blow may have come this Wednesday, when, in the Rose Garden, against a backdrop of American flags, President Donald Trump proudly signed the “declaration of economic independence”—a presidential action that imposed a baseline tariff of 10 percent on nearly all countries and raised the United States’ overall average import tax to 22.5 percent, the highest level in 115 years.

Liberation and Its Discontents | Council on Foreign Relations