As Jim Geraghty details in today’s Jolt, Trump trade aide Peter Navarro is saying that the new U.S. tariffs aren’t meant to kick-start negotiations. He also says that the “cheating” problem they’re designed to address goes beyond other countries’ tariffs on us. It includes their non-tariff barriers. And these non-tariff barriers are defined very broadly. They include other countries’ tax systems, such as Europe’s value-added taxes, which don’t protect their industries because they apply to them as well as to exports from the U.S.

Moreover, if a country has a trade surplus with us, administration officials have strongly suggested that it counts as evidence of cheating. The formula it has used to come up with tariff rates is based on those bilateral trade balances (although even countries with whom we have a surplus get whacked with a 10 percent tariff). President Trump himself said yesterday that he is not going to make any deal that leaves the U.S. with a bilateral trade deficit.

Let’s say that a foreign country wanted to eliminate its trade surplus with us to get lower tariffs. What’s it supposed to do? Cutting its own tariffs would not guarantee that result. Neither would redesigning its tax system or manipulating its currency. The only way to make sure of that result would be for the foreign country’s government to play a much larger role in directing imports and exports than any market-oriented country does. The foreign government itself could purchase a lot of U.S. imports, for example, or set up an export quota and some system for determining who gets to sell how much within the new limit.

If you take the stated objectives and premises of the trade war seriously, then, you don’t just have to have more management of the economy by the U.S. government. Other governments all around the world have to increase the central direction of their economies, too.