My career in journalism started at the height of the Reagan/Thatcher free-market era. At the Financial Mail under Stephen Mulholland and Nigel Bruce, US ideologues such as Don Caldwell and Richard Grant were recruited. They had the dual role of writing “on message” copy and training us on the benefits of free market policies, what we now refer to as the Washington Consensus.

So it seems particularly odd to me that the US Republican government under President Donald Trump is so keen on tariffs. Previously it was Democrat senator Bernie Sanders, on what passes for the left in America, who was the US tariff cheerleader...

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