"I'm not saying there won't be a little pain," President Trump said in April about the tense trade negotiations and ensuing brinksmanship between the U.S. and China. That day the Dow closed down 700 points when China threatened $50 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. Subsequent events have done little to relieve the pain.

Failed trade talks between the U.S. and China in June have culminated in the world's two largest economies making good on their threats—with both countries announcing tens of billions of dollars of tariffs on each other's goods. And the president is not reserving his tariff-driven negotiating style for our country's greatest commercial competitor.

He's imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on our staunchest allies from Canada and Mexico to the European Union. On the 70th anniversary year of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that spawned the global trade architecture, global trade relations have never been more fraught.

During that same April radio interview, the president added "so we may take a hit, and you know what, ultimately we're going to be much stronger for it, but it's something we ought to do."