Markets crashing, farmers suffering, allies seething, manufacturing workers fretting about their job security.
These were all foreseeable consequences of President Trump's trade wars, which escalated in the past week after Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese goods ever higher and Beijing announced tit-for-tat retaliatory duties. Such developments reveal the risks of Trump's protectionist instincts, his fundamental misunderstanding of how both trade and trade negotiations work, and his inability to learn the lessons of the trade war that deepened the Great Depression.
All this should be great ammunition for Trump's rivals. Why isn't it being used?
Republicans, of course, are too cowardly to challenge Trump on much of anything.