Donald Trump is right to pick a trade war with China. He just has the wrong strategy.

It's time for countervailing currency intervention

How will our next president handle China's tariffs?
(Image credit: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Most everyone has been buzzing about the throw down between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz at the latest GOP debate, along with the ongoing nothing burger that is Marco Rubio. But something else happened last week, slightly less dramatic but noteworthy: The Donald came within a hair's breadth of saying something sane on economic matters.

It happened when host Neil Cavuto brought up an article by The New York Times that said Trump would support slapping a 45 percent tariff on goods coming into America from China. Trump said that the Times misquoted him on the scale of the tariff he'd impose. But he went on to defend the general policy.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.