The current narrative is that Trump is starting a trade war. But I have a hard time working out a way to define "trade war" in a way that does not have "trade war" occurring since long before Trump even began his campaign, unless your definition of "trade war" has a special pleading clause that just excludes the US for some reason and imposes a special, non-symmetric obligation on it for some reason that presumably contradicts the idea that the US isn't that special.

People just didn't know about the tariffs that already existed because the media didn't report on them, so politically, they didn't exist. (The idea that the media has this power but that it has not corrupted them is one I have a hard time understanding.)