This week our cover looks at the age of chaos brought about by Donald Trump’s incoherent trade policy. American markets, which fell sharply after the president announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2nd, rebounded on April 9th when he declared a 90-day pause on most of the levies. The s&p 500 index of American stocks rose by 9.5%, its fastest daily rise in nearly 17 years. But the scale of the trade shock that Mr Trump has set off is still unlike anything in history. The president’s arbitrary policymaking means that not even his advisers know what is coming next. And he is raising tariffs on China, the world’s second-biggest economy. A better way for Mr Trump to challenge China would have been to marshal America’s allies into a free-trade bloc large enough to force China to change its trade practices as the price of admission. But now that it has bullied its allies and reneged on its past deals, America will find they are less willing to co-operate. In a mere ten days the president has ended the old certainties that underpinned the world economy, replacing them with extraordinary levels of volatility and confusion. It will take a very long time to rebuild what has been lost.