Editorial: $12 billion payout to farmers is a tariff-based disaster

If President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are so great for the American economy, then why does he have to shell out, as he did this month, $12 billion to farmers adversely affected by tariffs and trade wars?

The simple answer is of course that tariffs and the trade wars they lead to are never great for our economy, or for that of any other country. They are additional taxes — as if we needed additional taxes — on the American consumer, and no one else.

In the 19th century...