US leaders must introspect before raising rhetoric on trade war

At a time when US President Donald Trump's plan to impose hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China and other economies is raising the specter of a trade war, it's important to caution against policymaking based on a "misjudgment" or "wrong perception".

On Thursday, Trump vowed to impose 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum, which he claims pose a threat to US national security. Many experts, however, say the United States administration's case looks weak.

As trade expert Phil Levy has said, the US Commerce Department report claiming metal imports had eroded the country's ability to make its own weapons also noted the Defense Department's steel needs require a measly 3 percent of total US steel production, which has been a steady 70 percent of the US market's total demand for steel, James Pethokoukis, an American Enterprise Institute economic policy analyst, wrote in a post on Friday. "So national security is a flimsy, even vaporous, justification for tariffs," Pethokoukis said.