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Today, the U.S. has not only lost much of its steel capacity, it’s at risk of losing the balance, making it dependent on a host of countries: Canada, its largest and most reliable foreign supplier, meets just five per cent of U.S. needs. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the United States is now at risk of finding itself “in a position where it is unable to be certain it could meet demands for national defense and critical industries in a national emergency.” If dependent on a foreign country, the department warns, the U.S. would not have the legal authority to commandeer supplies as it could within the U.S.

“Our steel industry is in bad shape,” Trump tweeted. “IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!”

Those who believe war is for the history books, never to inconvenience us in our daily comforts, naturally view Trump as some kind of madman, senselessly protecting a few steelworkers in an economically irrelevant industry at a great cost to the rest of the labour force and economy. But those with a longer time frame and a sense of history — and especially those who can sense the gathering storm of war — make different calculations.

Trump, like president Ronald Reagan before him, believes in peace through strength. He wants a military so dominant, and an economy so robust, that no adversary would ever dare challenge it. At the same time, Trump wants to take on today’s Evil Empire, the country that represents a future existential threat to the U.S. — China. An uncompromising ally in this project to neuter China — a man Trump calls a visionary — is Peter Navarro, his chief trade adviser, formerly a professor of economic and public policy at University of California and the author of Deathby China, a 2011 book that warns, “China’s perverse form of capitalism combines illegal mercantilist and protectionist weapons to pick off American industries, job by job. China’s emboldened military is racing towards head-on confrontation with the U.S.” Navarro’s other China book, The Coming China Wars published in 2006, described China as a ruthless emerging power likely to succeed in its ambitions of dominance.