Don’t expect the Federal Reserve to rescue the US economy from the epic tariffs the Trump administration has imposed on imports from most of the world. The only question now is how bad the damage will be.
The president’s attack on free trade is truly extraordinary in scope, scale and lack of nuance. The weighted-average tariff is likely to climb to 25 per cent or more of the value of imports this year, from less than 3 per cent. This increase amounts to more than 10 times what Trump did in his first term.
