Alva Review-Courier -

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Ronald Reagan once likened trade wars to the pie fights in old Hollywood comedies. One pie in the face leads to another. And then another.

Pretty soon, Reagan said in a 1986 radio address, "everything and everybody just gets messier and messier. The difference here is that it's not funny. It's tragic. Protectionism becomes destructionism. It costs jobs."

Suddenly, the world's financial markets are gripped by fear that an escalating trade rift between the United States and China — the two mightiest economies — could smear the world with a lot of splattered cream and...