THE SOLAR PANEL TARIFF COULD END UP EVEN MORE DAMAGING.

early as this week. Apparently, the office of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is busy writing a case for tariffs based on China’s (mis)treatment of intellectual property. But the recent balance-of-trade numbers might explain the politics of the move: the 2017 U.S. deficit in trade in goods with China hit a new record, US$375 billion — in the first year of Trump’s presidency, no less.

Surely, in Trump’s view of the world, that aggression cannot stand. He tweeted last week that the U.S. had asked China for a plan to reduce its trade surplus by $1 billion; a White House spokesman later clarified that the President meant to say “$100 billion.” One supposes the tariffs, if enacted, will go some way to getting to that mark, but at what cost?

Details are characteristically sketchy, but there’s little doubt the tax on anything-Chinese would inflate prices for U.S. consumers and make business harder for Corporate America. In a recent report, the nonpartisan Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated that a 10-percent levy on Chinese IT imports alone would “slow the growth of U.S. output by US$163 billion over the next 10 years, and a 25 per cent tariff would slow output by US$332 billion.” That’s showing them… Meanwhile, China appears to be playing a different game. On Tuesday, Premier Li Keqiang told reporters that China plans to reduce import tariffs on a range of consumer goods, will open highly protected sectors like financial services and manufacturing to foreign investment, and will stop requiring technology transfer as a cost of doing business for foreign firms. Who knows whether those pledges will be followed by action, but the rhetorical departure from the U.S. is stark, as China sets its sights on extending its global influence through commerce.

So while the Americans are following the Azninski strategy, maybe the Chinese are reading their Sun Tzu, who advised generals to warp when the enemy woofs. Or to put it another way: if your adversary wants to cut off his own head with a chainsaw, let him.