US will feel the blowback from its trade extortion

Although the World Trade Organization did not name any particular country, its warning that trade barriers are damaging the global economy and that the effects are already apparent should be heeded by the United States.

While the objective of the Donald Trump administration's protectionism is to reverse the relative economic decline of the US and benefit selected domestic industries and workers in the US, it will not achieve those aims. Instead, the effect will be rising prices in the US, which in turn will affect the balance sheets of many US companies operating in China, since they account for a large proportion of China's exports to the US.

In effect, the Trump administration is behaving like a gang of hoodlums with its shakedown of other countries, particularly China, and its unruliness looks set to have a profoundly damaging impact on the global economic landscape in the coming decades, unless countries stand together to oppose it.