Mexico will pay and so will every other country exporting trade goods to the US. And as a thinly veiled 20% tariff barrier?

And you think the other countries are not going to respond in kind or more so? THe man is a daft egomaniac?

Great depression mark two in development?
Alan B.

Why not? Trump, as U.S president wants to do what is best for the U.S. It's well past time that Turnbull and other Western so-called leaders did something for their countries, too.

Yes ttbn, and why not take it a step further and pit state against state?

And if we did that? On what part of the totem pole would SA be on?

You guessed it on the bottom and just under the allorgorical annus sphincter! And even a complete fool knows what you get from that!?

The last time we had a protectionist conservative president in power, we ushered in the enduring Great depression.

So, is that what you mean by doing something for your own country, which so happens to be a trading nation, ultimately reliant on the flow of unfettered commerce!

And without question, not what President Trump is proposing, but rather, a trade war and all its counterproductive, extremely negative, lose/lose consequences!

You think other trading nations reliant on trade for their economic well being, are not going to respond in kind or indeed look around for non US replacement trading partners?

Is that what you mean by doing something for your own nation?

Buddha say, enlightenment start with brick to head. And if anyone needs bricking, it has to be the new, oldest ever, El Presidente?
Alan B.

Maybe Mr Trump has noticed that trade with debased Asian and Latin American slave countries is what led the once prosperous Rust Belt into a permanent Depression. Cowed workers whose living standards are not backed with strong labour laws and unions will always produce goods more cheaply than workers benefiting from these hard-earned advantages.

The same slave trade is what is robbing Australians of jobs with a future. Certain Australian pollies have become noteworthy for their pursuit of free trade deals with slave countries. They need to be targeted at the polling booth and their depredations combated with exploitation-indexed import tariffs.

In response to AlanB, Mr Trump is not pitting state against state, he's refusing to pit American workers against Asian and Latin American slaves. There are plenty of decent states with civilised labour laws with which to compete on the basis not of slavery-driven cheapness but of good quality and customer-friendly business practices. That's not the competition that the cut-price greedies peddling free trade deals want.

Hi EJ,

I wonder what proportion of firms employing your slave labour in Asia etc. are American, or 'Western' ? Walmart, for instance: maybe they don't actually produce in Asia etc., but buy the cheap goods from other firms in order to sell them in western countries. So if Trump slaps a tariff on goods produced in Asia, what effect might that have on the goods that Trump's Rust-Belt followers buy ? A 40 % increase in price ? Thanks, Donald.

Historically, jobs don't come back in the forms that they used to be in: any new investment would use the latest technology, robotics, etc. It used to be said that soon, the only living things in a factory would be a watchman and his dog: but with CCTV, there is not even a need for a watchman, or even his dog. Employment moves up-market, it never comes back to 'the way things were'. Trump's working-class supporters are going to be bitterly disappointed.

If course, there are different sorts of swamps too. Trump might drain one, the bureaucracy, by supplanting it with another, from his business associates.

Horribly fascinating: wouldn't be dead for quids.

Joe