Without reducing the federal deficit or putting the skids on U.S. investment and growth, Mr. Trump can’t reduce the trade deficit with just tariffs.

Tariffs targeted at China ? 60%, implemented in steps ? could work if he uses the proceeds to reduce the federal deficit. Otherwise, most of China’s lost exports would shift to places such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Mexico.

Wider tariffs on trading partners Canada, Mexico, Europe, South Korea and Japan will weaken their economies, encourage retaliation, drive them into accommodating arrangements with Russia and China and ultimately leave America isolated with reduced markets for our technology products and growth prospects ? a poorer America.

Extending expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is not a tax cut but merely sustaining the fiscal status quo. Any new tax breaks not financed by spending cuts, revenue from tariffs on Chinese goods or curtailing some of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s benefits would merely expand the budget and international trade deficits and stoke inflation.

Mr. Trump can repeal the law of gravity sooner than change those macroeconomic realities.

Economists have piled up mountains of studies allegedly showing that Mr. Trump’s first-term tariffs on China had negative consequences because they began with the premise that the current state of trade is based on comparative advantages and maximizes economic efficiency.

China protects its domestic market while subsidizing virtually every major export industry in one form or another and forcing its trade surpluses on the current accounts of other major economies.