Trump's plan to tax the entire world will result in the type of global trade war not seen since the Great Depression, think tank says

• Trump's plans for a universal tariff on all US imports could set off a global trade war, a Peterson Institute fellow said.
• Such a conflict erupted the last time the US applied blanket protectionism in the 1930s.
• Others have warned that a trade war with China could be coming regardless, no matter who is president.

Donald Trump says his trade policy would be a way to protect the US from exploitation. 

Yet, by applying a base tariff on virtually all foreign goods, he's starting a "war against trade itself," Alan Wm. Wolff wrote for the Peterson Institute for International Economics.