Last Friday, as many prepared to head out for long holiday weekends, we learned that Donald Trump still has his heart set on starting a trade war. Against the advice of virtually his entire inner circle, save for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and anti-globalist hardliners Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, Trump is reportedly strongly considering slapping China with tariffs in the range of 20 percent on steel and other imports. Other top officials supposedly “argued strenuously” against the move, cautioning that “the collateral damage would include a slew of allies, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.” How did European leaders—who haven’t been particularly thrilled with Trump in recent weeks, given his noticeably tepid endorsement of NATO and his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord—react to the news? Did they simply shrug their shoulders and chalk it up to Trump being Trump? Not exactly.

“We will react with counter measures within a few days, we do not need two months," European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday at the G20 summit in Hamburg. “I say this in the hope that all of this will not be necessary, but we are really in battle mood,” he told reporters.

Meanwhile, E.U. leaders aren’t the only ones who should be irked about the prospect of Trump’s little trade war; Americans, who will ultimately pay the price for it in the literal sense of the word should be, too. Bloomberg reports that in a letter to the Commerce Department and Defense Secretary James Mattis a group of bipartisan House and Senate members noted that “broad tariffs could increase the price of consumer goods, affect manufacturing jobs, and cost the beverage industry hundreds of millions of dollars.” Tim Weiner, a senior commodity risk manager for Molson Coors Brewing Co., has warned that “If there are duties on aluminum coming to this country, it will obviously get passed on to us and the customer.” In other words: MAGA!

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Breaking: Trump administration wants credit for achievement it played no role in

Just as spring turns to summer and summer turns to fall, the Trump administration can be counted on to obscure facts in an attempt to claim credit for accomplishments that aren’t its own. Early in their tenure, Donald Trump and Sean Spicer patted themselves on the back for the strong jobs numbers in February—i.e., 10 days after Trump took office, as economic adviser Gary Cohn went off script to remind the press—and now, Team Trump seemingly believes it played a role in . . . U.S. population growth.

Which is a bit misguided, as The Washington Post’s Philip Bump points out: