One of the many interesting aspects of Donald Trump's emergence over the past decade as the singular focal point of America's frenzied political discourse is the fact that, as a decades-long public figure and long-time New York City media fixture, Trump has a voluminous track record of on-record statements, predictions, and professed opinions. And while the immigration issue has been the political glue holding together Trump's nationalist-populist MAGA coalition ever since his initial descent down the Trump Tower gilded escalator in 2015 to announce his fateful presidential run, there is no political issue on which Trump the man has a longer—and more consistent—track record than that of trade.

Specifically, going back all the way to the late 1970s and the 1980s, Trump has long been opposed to the globalist and neoliberal economic impulses that predominate among his fellow billionaires, ultra-millionaires, and titans of industry. Trump has always had more economically nationalist, protectionist instincts when it comes to the related issues of trade, tariffs, manufacturing, and, perhaps above all, the rise of China. For all these reasons and many more, Donald Trump is, as I wrote in an essay for TomKlingenstein.com last May, a "class traitor" par excellence—someone who "may hold 'elite' ruling class credentials, but whose hearts, minds, concerns, and general sensibilities are decidedly with the country class." There are a number of leaders in American public life today who fit that description, but Trump is the archetype.

It is only with that broader context in mind that the past week of aggressive Trump White House-imposed tariffs can possibly be understood. Reasonable opinions will vary on the general efficacy of tariffs and the general significance of such ideas as the balance of trade and industrial policy, but this is simply not an issue where Trump's mind is open and subject to either prevarication or outside lobbying. Trump's mind is made up on this issue, and America, as of this writing, finds itself in a trade war. The relevant questions now, as I wrote for the Daily Mail last week, are what the results of that trade war will be and whether one is rooting for Trump—and by extension, the nation—to prevail in it.

And yet, at the same time, one cannot simply whitewash away the very real drop in equity markets over the past week. It is easy for armchair pundits to dismiss concern over a plummeting stock market as the provincial worry of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund fat cats, but that is just not true—working- and middle-class people all across America are seeing their life savings and retirement accounts get pummeled in real time. The Trump administration simply must do a better job of communicating what exactly it is hoping to accomplish with its sweeping tariffs, explaining why the short-term economic pain that so many Americans are now feeling truly is worth it, articulating what the precise end goal of the tariffs will be, and then—ideally—also reformulating the tariffs to be more narrowly tailored and focused on very real, specific, and tangible concerns, such as China.

When it comes to tariffs, as with so much else, the truth can be a bit nuanced. Trump's tariff agenda is directionally correct—indeed, his instincts to re-nationalize swaths of the economy after decades of globalist failures are laudable. But the American people also deserve better messaging and reassurance from the Trump administration than they are now getting. The administration can, and should, do better in that respect.

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Our additional highlighted recent Newsweek op-eds include selections from Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Gordon G. Chang, and Tim Rosenberger.

Have a great rest of your week! To my fellow Jews, I wish you a chag kasher v'sameach—a happy and kosher Passover holiday. We'll be back in your inbox next week.