This Friday, despite Gary Cohn’s attempted assemblage of trade-war victims, Mike Pence’s extremely measured criticism, and Paul Ryan’s vigorous finger-wagging, Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs are set to go into effect. The world’s diplomats have criticized the plan from the outset, calling it things like “extremely stupid,” “desperate,” “absolutely unacceptable,” and tantamount to a “declaration of war.” U.S. allies have already begun considering retaliatory measures should they be unable to secure an exemption, and considering that Trump’s professed way of negotiating is to lie to people’s faces, many are concerned they will fail to find the magic words to convince Trump that the punitive measures shouldn’t apply to them. Not helping matters? The fact that the guy sent to allay their concerns is Trump lackey Steve Mnuchin, who is not exactly known for inspiring confidence.

Holding court at this week’s G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mnuchin tried desperately to mop up the mess his boss had created. “I think we have the right combination here of doing something to protect U.S. industry from dumping and unfair competition in the appropriate way,” he told The New York Times on Monday. “The objective is not to put tariffs on everybody but to solve the issue.” He added that the White House has been “transparent” in its position, and that “this is all about free and fair and reciprocal trade.” Mnuchin reportedly argued that the president “was not trying to start a trade war,” a point that was somewhat undercut by the president literally having tweeted “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” Shockingly, world leaders remain unconvinced.

France’s finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said Monday that he made it clear to the Treasury secretary that the entire European Union must receive an exemption, and that bilateral negotiations with individual European countries would be completely unacceptable. That’s complicated by the fact that the president of the United States hates multilateral agreements and may or may not actually understand that the E.U. does not strike side deals like the ones he’s tried unsuccessfully to pitch in the past. “We are waiting for the United States to show some good will towards Europe,” Le Maire said, adding that tariffs are a terrible idea. “Going the way of protectionism will lead nowhere. It will make only losers, not winners, including the United States.”

Equally if not more concerned about the situation is Wall Street, which is still attempting to recover from the shock of Cohn being replaced as National Economic Council director by perennially wrong TV pundit Larry Kudlow. In a recent poll, almost two-thirds of respondents said they see Trump’s trade policies as a negative for economic growth, with 48 percent saying the aluminum and steel tariffs will result in fewer U.S. jobs. “The U.S. economy is doing well, the manufacturing sector is gaining ground, the economy is at full employment, but inflation pressures are rising,” John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics, told CNBC. “I couldn’t imagine a worse time to impose tariffs.”

All of which makes the fact that Trump is reportedly set to announce $60 billion in fresh tariffs targeted at China somewhat awkward! Originally, the president’s advisers had presented him with a $30 billion tariff package, but, per The Washington Post, Trump “directed them to roughly double the scope,” because when it comes to numbers, the bigger the better. The new package of tariffs could apply to more than 100 products and be unveiled as soon as Friday. And, surprise: no one expects these new measures to have the effect Trump thinks they will.