Shall We Play a Game? Tariff War Edition

Shall We Play a Game? Tariff War Edition

Populist politicians and pundits sell tariffs as powerful economic weapons. Maybe the ultimate weapons. As Donald Trump has said, “I always say ‘tariffs’ is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.”  And that’s saying something given how many words are in the dictionary. Yet in reality, these tariff superweapons are more like self-harming boomerangs. That’s the lesson from Trump’s trade wars and, oddly enough, from the popular 1983 film …