Wall Street Journal Hits Donald Trump With The Harsh Truth About His ‘Golden Age’ Boast

The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board on Monday cheered President Donald Trump’s climbdown from his mega-tariffs on China, busting the White House’s spin on it as a win by describing it in an op-ed as “more surrender than Trump victory.”

“Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs—and by Mr. Trump’s own hand,” wrote the newspaper, whose board has been a fierce critic of Trump’s second-term trade policies, particularly his tariffs.

A “tragedy” of Trump’s “shoot-America-in-the-foot-first approach,” said the paper, “is that he’s hurt his chances of rallying a united front of countries against Beijing’s mercantilism.” It added, “By targeting allies with tariffs, Mr. Trump has eroded trust in America’s economic and political reliability.”

But the possible “silver lining,” according to the Journal, is that markets have forced Trump “to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new ‘golden age.’”

“The age didn’t last two months, and it was more leaden than golden,” it added.

China and the U.S. agreed, in the agreement announced Monday, to pause the majority of tariffs for 90 days.

American tariffs on Chinese imports will sink from 145% to 30%. Chinese tariffs on U.S. imports will reduce from 125% to 10%.