#TariffsPause President Trump has suspended many of his most-threatened tariffs for 90 days. Although the stock market initially regained some ground on this news, the S&P 500 still stands about 5 percent below where it was on “Liberation Day.”

Trump’s 10 percent global tariffs and special 25 percent tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles are still in place, and he just raised China’s tariff to 145 percent. When he took office in January, the average U.S. tariff rate was 2.2 percent. With all the new tariffs, it is now above 24 percent, more than 10 times higher.

Trump’s tariffs represent a clumsy attempt to replace a global trading system based on stability and deliberation with his unilateral rage- and power-driven trade war.

His nonsensical tariff formula was so widely ridiculed that no one in his administration is now willing to admit their part in constructing it. Foreign trading partners see the calculations as a blatant exaggeration of their actual tariffs, designed to allow Trump to extract more trade and non-trade concessions from them.

Trump’s foolhardy gamble to remake the world economy has also led to turmoil in the bond market. Trump may believe he can create a globalization-free market for U.S. manufacturing, but he cannot do the same with U.S. financial markets.