Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei told the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump is "an irrational type" and said the U.S. "wouldn't be entitled to world leadership" if Trump went through with his plan to slap severe tariffs on some Chinese exports. Mr. Trump has advocated imposing up to 45% tariffs on China as a way to force it to change its trade policies. Mr. Lou, known in China for his outspokenness, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that such a tariff would violate World Trade Organization rules. Under those conditions, he said, the U.S. wouldn’t be entitled to its position as the world’s major power. “Almost any across-the-board tariff increase would violate U.S. obligations under the WTO,” said Jeffrey Schott, a trade economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank backing free trade. In a statement from his campaign, Mr. Trump charged that China was “in total...(Read Full Post)