So just which advanced economy is worst hit by Donald Trump’s liberation campaign? The IMF has the answer. It is the US of A.

It is tempting, sorely tempting, to feel a deep sense of schadenfreude in response to that verdict. There you go, Donald, serves you right.

Or perhaps we contemplate Elon Musk who has pledged to cut back his prominent role in Team Trump in order to focus upon his car firm – where sales and profits have slumped.

As Oscar Wilde noted in very different circumstances, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

Except. This is all decidedly far from funny. Not remotely droll. The Trump tariffs have translated into global economic disruption. Affecting business, jobs, livelihoods. In short, us.

So we must resist the temptation to jeer. We must all try to work out how to get out of this mess. Which means we refrain from advising the President that he is a blundering blow-hard. Instead, we empathise, we praise, we cajole – and we hope for a rethink.

Read more by Brian Taylor

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, plainly gets that and is acting accordingly. Ahead of talks in Washington, she noted that she understood the motivation behind Mr Trump’s actions.
The President, she suggested, was responding to “global imbalances” in the economic structure.

Which left us all “grappling” with tariffs. Good word, that. Conjures up a positive response when the actual objective is to negate everything that Trump has done.

The Chancellor even went so far as to imply fellow feeling. Both Mr Trump and Sir Keir Starmer, she suggested, had come to power in response to voter frustration with the economy.
OK, so that is really pushing it. Ms Reeves does not believe for a nanosecond that........

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