New York, Feb 2 : President Donald Trump is on the verge of hitting America’s three biggest trading partners with sweeping tariffs, a far more aggressive use of his favorite economic weapon than anything he did during his first term, reported CNN.

The looming import taxes on Mexico, Canada and China will be a major test of Trump’s unorthodox use of tariffs, which he’s described as “the greatest thing ever invented.” 

It’s an enormous gamble, arguably a bigger one than any economic policy Trump enacted during his four-plus years in the White House. And this strategy has the potential to upend the thing many voters care about the most: the economy and the cost of living.  But Trump’s tariffs pose a big risk: They could backfire, lifting already-high consumer prices at the grocery store, rocking the shaky stock market or killing jobs in a full-blown trade war.  “This may be the biggest own-goal yet,” Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNN in a phone interview.

“This is a huge gamble. It’s a recipe for slowing down the economy and increasing inflation.” 

The Wall Street Journal went a step further, publishing a scathing op-ed on Saturday titled: “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”  The op-ed argued that Trump’s justification for an “economic assault” on Canada and Mexico “makes no sense” and warned the strategy could end in disaster.