Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, Americans have grown used to high drama and rapid-fire headlines, as executive orders from the Oval Office have reshaped the US, from stripping back LGBTQ+ rights to gutting environmental regulations amid a sense that the US is slipping into authoritarianism.
But even against that backdrop, last week stood out, as Trump launched a fierce global trade war, imposed tariffs on its trading partners and triggered a global market meltdown, including on Trump’s own cherished Wall Street, where hundreds of billions of dollars of stock values evaporated.
