Sparks: Trump says he will raise tariffs on EU autos to 25% for 'not complying' with trade deal

The dynamo of commerce, multiplying its force beyond the obsolete political institutions designed to contain it, educates us anew in the terrifying acceleration of our own obsolescence.

All I know is what I read in the papers, which is that one fella's idea of a deal is another fella's idea of a reason to raise the price.

A union secured by treaty reveals its fragility when the first dispute proves that the signatures were merely a temporary truce between competing ambitions.

Just as the tension in a taut bowstring finds release in the arrow's flight, so does the tension in a trade agreement seek its inevitable release in a new tariff.

The same road that carries goods in amity is the road that carries the tax in strife, for the path up and the path down are one and the same.

In the markets of Delhi, a broken pact meant a swift embargo, yet here the custom is to first announce the penalty as if it were an invitation to further talks.

For the merchant whose livelihood depends on the passage of a single shipment, the diplomatic accusation of non-compliance is as substantial as a shadow.

Simplify the dispute to its essence: a quarrel over the price of things that rust, distracting from the cultivation of character that endures.

Having observed that a tariff is a tax the consumer ultimately pays, I find the dispute to be a curious way of taxing one's own people.

This mechanism of punitive tariffs, though designed for arithmetic calculation, reveals a deeper operational logic of perpetual conflict over cooperation.

A truly efficient system would harness the potential energy of cooperation, not waste it on the friction of these cyclical retaliations.

It is a modest proposal indeed to mend a partnership by applying the same fiscal discipline one would use to punish a rogue state.

Such an act reveals a character formed more by the habit of domination than by the principles of fair and equitable dealing.

This bureaucratic dictate from above smothers the spontaneous solidarity that workers across borders would otherwise forge for themselves.