Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” an exasperated Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during a press conference Monday, while introducing new sanctions against Iran. Bessent may think that’s still a self-evidently ridiculous question. George W. Bush didn’t want a Great Financial Crisis, nor did Herbert Hoover seek to start a Great Depression. Surely no White House would deliberately hurt the global economy.

Yet for the first time ever, that’s not the case. At home and abroad, the past few days have laid bare the extent to which President Trump’s troubles on the economy are self-inflicted.