The global economic system that the United States has shaped and steered for more than three-quarters of a century was animated by a powerful guiding vision: that trade and finance would be based on cooperation and consent rather than coercion.
That system, for all its faults, entrenched the United States as the world’s richest nation and its sole financial superpower. The rule of law and the stability and trust that this approach generated helped make the dollar the world’s go-to currency for transactions and America a center of global investment.
By provoking a worldwide trade war, President Trump risks abandoning that vision of shared interests and replacing it with one that assumes sharp economic conflicts are unavoidable.
Gone are appeals to a larger purpose, mutual agreements or shared values. In this new order, the strongest powers determine the rules and enforce them through intimidation and bare-knuckled power.
“This is a completely different vision,” said Greg Grandin, a historian at Yale, “one in which the first principle is that nations don’t have shared interests; they have inherent conflicts of interests.”
That view is behind the president’s decision to slap sweeping tariffs on Wednesday including a 10 percent tax on nearly every import to the United States.