Trade war will bring waste and destruction

“Overall disastrous” is the concern that the careful, authoritative analysts at The Economist magazine voiced regarding the steel and aluminum import tariffs imposed by our impetuous, irresponsible President Donald Trump. I’m no expert, but they are.

We’d better be prepared for international trade conflict and to deal with the waste and destruction that results from conflict as opposed to negotiation. The long, steady economy of the past few years won’t survive.

This fight will draw blood in labor markets, commodity markets and currency markets. It will demoralize the productive networks that link our constructive society.

We are starting a war that will be fought in the media and in cyberspace, where countries that are less economically dominant can be very effective. It will quench the hopes and cut into the budgets of our workers on the factory floor, in agriculture and mining, and in corporate boardrooms and offices. It will suck resources from growing innovators and entrepreneurs. Our powerful country will suffer, along with the rest. Bigger bombs won’t help. We’ll have to defend against cyberattacks and strive to maintain balance in currency markets, labor markets and commodity markets all over he world, where our advantage is far from certain.

Such a war can only be won with the cooperation of many allies. Our president may see himself as the biggest cock on the rock, but the whole rock will be tarnished and down trodden if we slide down the slippery staircase this bully has stepped us out onto.

Ed Reid is a resident of Santa Fe.