Europe’s worst-case scenario for the future of transatlantic economic relations rose to the surface this week when President-elect Donald Trump gave a clear signal that he’ll use American trade might as a means to exert foreign policy leverage.

European countries could be among those hardest hit if Trump follows through on tariffs. The European Union says it wants to negotiate but is prepared to retaliate.

The layman’s narrative of the 1930s is that America’s Smoot-Hawley tariffs set off a beggar-thy-neighbour spiral and caused the Great Depression. It is not true.