This guest post by BC Law Professor Frank Garcia originally appeared in the Cambridge University Press blog.

The first year of Trump’s second term has been a chaotic one for trade, as for so much else. Before inauguration, the President had already threatened tariffs against Denmark to force a “sale” of Greenland. Within days of taking office, he began threatening or imposing illegal tariffs against Colombia, China, Mexico, Canada, all steel and aluminum exporters, the EU, and now virtually all nations that trade with us. Each of these blows is a stark reminder that we live in a time when economic coercion masquerades as trade policy.