RE: Trumponomics resulted in more Shrinkflation?

I'm a firm believer that sanctions and tariffs are more often than not destructive.

What politicians of all types forget is that when you apply tariffs, it's your own citizens paying. It's both in terms of the cost of imported goods, but also with their jobs as the target countries impose their own retaliatory sanctions which hurt the businesses trying to export.

As for sanctions, something which really angers me is that the US, UK and EU apply and enforce rigid sanctions without any UN mandate. For example, defining a tankers as "Shadow Fleet" because the country owning it allows it to buy insurance from their own insurance industry rather than from Lloyds of London, and then capturing or sinking them in international waters is nothing short of piracy. Although the story of Ursa Major is likely to make one heck of a thriller movie in a few years, from a recent underwater investigation by Spain (whose waters it was nearest when it sank) it seems that it was not an "engine room malfunction" as we were initially told, the damage is consistent with a type of cavitation torpedo only available to a few of the highest-end navies.

If governments truly want peace, sanctions aren't the way to go; it's better to keep trading and keep talking. The more trade, the higher the barriers to warfare and the less damage is done to civil society.