President Donald Trump’s new tariff campaign, imposing heavy taxes on imports from both friendly and unfriendly U.S. trading partners, might have prompted the famous Prussian general and military strategist Carl von Clausewitz to revise his aphorism that “war is merely a continuation of politics by other means.” Today, tariffs are a continuation of politics by other means.

President Trump variously justifies his tariffs—a form of protectionism—as a means of restoring “fairness” to international trade, as a way to force other nations to reduce the taxes they impose on American-made goods, and even as a new “Liberation Day,” on which the United States no longer is beholden to foreign manufacturers for things that should, in his mind, be made here.

However, if tariffs, like war, truly continue politics by other means, American consumers will be the main casualties. And even most Trump voters probably didn’t vote for him so they’d become trade-policy victims.

Tariffs imposed by one country invite retaliation by others. The prices of tariffed goods rise—though not by the entire........

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