Trump’s tariffs are a nostalgia that misreads a changed worldThe US president fights 1970s battles in a financialized age in which the US faces not a payments crisis, but a slow erosion of industrial and technological powerTHE GUARDIAN EDITORIALWhen the US Supreme Court on Friday last week voted 6-3 to strike down US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, he was incandescent. Two judges he had elevated — Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — were suddenly recast as traitors to the cause. The court ruled that the tariffs overstepped the powers the US Congress granted under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Trump responded by reaching for a 1974 trade law, invoking “international payments problems” to slap on a 10 percent tariff for 150 days. It fell not to one shock, but to many: war debts, shrinking economic weight, imperial overstretch and self-inflicted deflation.

Source: Taipei Times February 26, 2026 16:30 UTC