Albert Einstein is said to have remarked that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” We have to wonder what he might have made of Donald Trump’s economic platform in his bid for another term in office. Mr. Trump is promising that, if elected, he would double down on his first term’s economic policies by being more aggressive than he was before, both with respect to import tariff hikes and tax rate cuts. Never mind that those policies resulted in a meaningful widening of both the trade and budget deficits during his presidency.

The two central economic planks of Mr. Trump’s first term in office were the increased imposition of import tariffs and the introduction of large tax cuts. Tariffs of between 10 and 25 percent were placed on $380 billion worth of imports from China, together with aluminum and steel import tariffs of a similar size on many of our trade partners. At the same time, corporate and income tax rates were cut in a major way by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Congressional Budget........

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