Note that Trump is citing provisions that bypass the World Trade Organization. If the problem is supposed to be that China is engaging in “unfair” trade, the WTO has mechanisms that allow the United States to raise these objections and seek redress, under a framework specifically designed to prevent such disputes from escalating into a full-blown trade war. President Trump is deliberately ignoring those mechanisms. In trade war terms, this is as if George W. Bush had invaded Iraq without first getting a UN resolution and a coalition of allies. Trump is a unilateral trade warmonger.

Worse, this is the equivalent of going to war without even getting authorization from Congress. Trump has cited vague grants of trade powers given to Congress in rarely used provisions of old laws. Not only does this allow him to ignore Congress, it allows him to impose new tariffs arbitrarily and capriciously.