Dumping on Trump: Tariffs Aren’t Part of the Apocalypse

Let me start this one by saying that I think Trump’s threats of a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports are a bad idea. We should take steps to lower the value of the dollar against the yuan, but the public threat of large tariffs is probably not the best way to go. The route is obviously through negotiations where we would have to give up things, like protections for Microsoft’s copyrights and Pfizer’s patents.

But that aside, the fact that a particular policy is unwise should not be a licens...