US President Donald Trump’s embrace of tariffs has been met with considerable criticism, and for sound reasons. But Trump’s diagnosis of the global trading system – and, specifically, its impact on US manufacturing – may not be entirely wrong. The problem, instead, is the treatment: rather than using a chainsaw, which would probably kill the patient, he should reach for a scalpel.The existing international order, including the global trading system and the dollar-based monetary system, were established in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, near the end of World War II. With Europe in ruins, the United States enjoyed undisputed economic dominance, including in manufacturing: in 1948, four years after the Bretton Woods conference, the US accounted for more than half of all goods produced worldwide.
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