In the run-up to this week’s Republican National Convention, the Donald Trump-dominated Party adopted a new policy platform that largely avoided specific commitments and contained softer language on abortion and same-sex marriage than its previous version. In the area of economics, however, there has been no sign of the former President backing down from his protectionist America First agenda. Despite recent warnings from economists that his plan could raise inflation, hurt consumers, and even knock the economy into a recession, he still seems intent on subjecting an economy that is just getting over a period of rapidly rising prices to a new inflationary shock—three of them, in fact.
On the campaign trail, Trump has floated a ten-per-cent tariff on all imported goods, and a sixty-per-cent levy on those from China. He has promised to deport millions of undocumented workers, which…