The abbreviated but sufficient summary of President Trump’s recent trade initiatives is that he set out to address the annual trade deficit of over $1 trillion by tentatively raising American tariffs toward or in some cases above the tariffs currently imposed by all other substantial trading countries on the United States. This is largely the unexceptionable principle of reciprocity. 

The secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, and other administration officials confirmed the president’s willingness to negotiate and urged the countries whose tariffs were being adjusted not to retaliate, in order to expedite productive negotiations. Within a few days approximately 75 countries, including Japan, the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, and South Korea, expressed the desire to negotiate compromises. 

Not one of these 75 countries imagines that the result of the negotiations will be anything other than an improvement on the status quo for the United States. However tenacious the determination of Mr. Trump’s detractors to deny it, this is a giant step forward for the United States. That was the goal of the tariff increases.

Communist China responded aggressively, and the United States and the People’s Republic spent the last week slinging notional tariff increases at each other. Canada responded with moderate increases and placatory language including directly between Mr. Trump and Canada’s acting prime minister pending a general election in two weeks. The United States has no serious grievance with Canada, a fair-trading country with which American actually has a surplus except for oil that it buys from Canada at a knockdown price and sells on to third parties at a profit.