Trump's tariffs are either madness or genius – it could go either way

This is the biggest surge in US protectionism since the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs of the early 1930s

Donald Trump has referred to tariffs as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”. And now the US President has unleashed the most aggressive surge in American trade protectionism in almost a century.

Trump’s far-reaching tariff increases, unveiled this morning, set a 10pc “baseline” tax on all imports of goods into the US, effective from Saturday 5th …