How Trump’s Tariffs Are Making History Again: Supply Lines

Any thorough economic history of the US invokes trade and tariffs at some point. Cross-border commerce from the Boston Tea Party to slavery to Smoot-Hawley and President Donald Trump is a through-line you can’t escape, for good and bad.

This week will provide another reminder of that. While the White House has worked hard to apply the historic label to last week’s meeting between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, it’s what will be happening in Washington on Wednesday that seems more likely to eventually require an update of the history books.

That’s when the Supreme Court will hear arguments in ...