New Delhi, April 9 -- The loudly trumpeted aim of US President Donald Trump is to revive America's economic mojo. That balanced foreign trade was not all rhetoric but a real part of his agenda hit home only on 2 April, when the US erected a tariff regime that left other countries aghast and economists agape.

What dropped jaws wasn't just the size of US import barriers, but the formula used for what it billed as 'reciprocal tariffs.' For every target country, 2024 data was taken and its tariff rate set at half the US trade deficit-or its excess of merchandise imports, in dollars, over exports-as a percentage of imports from it. Willy-nilly, this gave trade gaps an official cloak of villainy.

But a policy war aimed at a balance with each ...