Beyond the U.S.-China back and forth, multilateral proponents wait and wonder

While verbal missiles, backed by announced but still prospective actions, fly back and forth between the U.S. and China, more subdued subtexts highlight emergent concern about potential threats to the multilateralism that has, sometimes haltingly, dominated world trade for decades. And there’s increasing chatter about the potential world impacts flowing from the tit-for-tat tariff tactics so much in vogue. China “clearly indicates its determination to keep the United States at a permanent and unfair disadvantage ,” President Trump said following...