In his seven-point economic plan to “Make America Great Again,” candidate Donald Trump promised to “use every lawful presidential power to remedy trade disputes if China [did] not stop its illegal activities, including its theft of American trade secrets.” To this end, he enumerated an unusually detailed list of statutory and unconventional trade policy enforcement tools—Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1962; Section 201 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974—with which he would punitively sanction China.

On March 8, 2018, President Donald Trump began translating words into deeds by issuing a tariff proclamation under Section 232 to restrain the imports of steel into the United States with the intent to counter trade practices which, in his view, were undermining U.S. national security. The Section 232 measure is a highly unconventional and controversial way to restrict imports on the basis of their detrimental impact on U.S. national security. Its employment against foreign trade partners, particularly China, is likely to be the first volley in an increasingly torrid summer of lethal trade pyrotechnics.

As per the proclamation, a 25 percent tariff is to be imposed on a range of ‘steel articles’ imports starting March 23, 2018. The core purpose of the measure is to “help [the U.S.] domestic steel industry to revive idled facilities, open closed mills, preserve necessary skills by hiring new steel workers, and increase production, which will reduce [the United States’] need to rely on foreign producers for steel and ensure that domestic producers can continue to supply all the steel necessary for critical industries and national defense.” Achieving long-term economic viability of the domestic steel industry is assessed as restoring capacity utilization to an 80 percent rate; the industry currently operates overall in the 72-74 percent range.

The 25 percent tariff will be imposed on all countries—friend and foe alike—with the exception of Canada and Mexico, at least for the time being. With these two countries, discussions are to continue to find a way forward to limit their steel exports to the United States without the immediate imposition of the tariff. Canada and Mexico were the no. one and no. four steel exporters to the United States in 2017, and together accounted for a quarter of U.S. steel imports in 2017.

As a form of reassurance to other allies and partners with whom the United States has a security relationship, the Trump administration registered its openness to “discuss alternate ways to address the threatened impairment” to U.S. national security caused by their steel exports. Five U.S. allies feature in the top 10 list of steel exporters, and Australia currently heads the list of countries working with the administration to avoid the imposition of Section 232 tariffs. Australia is also a trading partner with whom the United States enjoys a trade surplus—an indispensable metric in the Trump administration’s eyes.

There are a number of key takeaways stemming from the Section 232 measure, none of which are appealing or exalting.

First, in his fifteen months in office, Trump has shown that his pronouncements deserve to be taken both literally and seriously. The Section 232 steel tariffs is just the latest case in a number of unorthodox campaign pledges—from the Paris climate deal to the Iran nuclear agreement to the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—that have been translated into action.

Second, contrary to the administration’s assertions about the potential threat to national security from steel imports, the purpose of the tariff is solely to protect, and thereby restore, the economic viability of the domestic industry. The steel requirement of the Defense Department is modest and U.S. domestic steel production (although not employment or profit margins) has been remarkably stable over the past two decades. The tariff measure is a classic case of textbook protectionism masquerading as national security to support a politically-connected sunset industry.

Third, ‘banking on protectionism’ is a tried-and-tested operating model of the chief architect of the Section 232 steel measure, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. In the early-2000s, Ross used President George W. Bush’s temporary safeguards on steel (that lasted from 2002 to late-2003) to purchase uncompetitive mills, which he then turned around with the cooperation of the industry’s powerful unions for a handsome profit.

Fourth, the 25 percent tariff rate will almost-certainly have to be raised in the near future. The amount of the tariff was designed on the basis of a global back-calculation to ensure an 80 percent capacity utilization rate (at 2017 demand levels plus exports) within the domestic industry. With Canada and Mexico—accounting for a quarter of global exports—to be exempted, the tariff on the rest of the world will need to raised to condense the rest of the world’s quota within the projected reduction envelope (to ensure 80 percent domestic capacity utilization). This type of de facto ‘managed trade’ targeting, as is the case with this tariff imposition, has no place in the post-World Trade Organization (WTO) global trading system.

Fifth, global trade law includes a national security exception clause (GATT Article XXI Security Exceptions) that permits a country to depart from its international trade obligations, including tariff bindings, at a time of war or other emergency in international relations. However, during a non-international emergency situation, a dispute settlement panel will likely look unfavorably on the United States’ claims if a foreign trading partner files a legal challenge arguing that its legitimate expectations of trade benefits were nullified or impaired by the U.S. action. When the 25 percent tariff measure is challenged within the WTO’s dispute settlement system (as it will), it will be worth noting whether or not the United States cites the national security exemption in its defense. There is no prior jurisprudence on this point, although a national security exemption-related case involving Qatar and the United Arab Emirates is currently being heard within the WTO system.

Finally, the key intended target of the measure, China, is not among the top 10 steel exporters to the United States. Of the almost $30 billion of total steel product imported by the United States in 2017, China exported less than $1 billion worth of such products. All of China’s top 10 steel exports markets are in East, South or Southeast Asia (aside from Saudi Arabia). By the time the 25 percent tariff gets around to penalizing China, it will have inflicted far more damage on other steel exporting countries, including five U.S. treaty allies. The willingness to disregard establishment opinion and impose a highly unconventional and controversial tariff bodes ominously for the results of the ongoing Section 301 investigation of China’s intellectual property rights (IPR). The case to penalize China is stronger (although hardly WTO-proof) and the will to do so in Washington far stronger.

The United States and China have their trade guns locked and loaded, and the first volley has already been fired. The spring and summer of 2018 will likely witness the fiercest trade fighting since since the infamous U.S.-Japan battles of the 1980s. It is no small irony that this trade war is being instigated by the same characters in the United States whose formative experiences were shaped by the bruising battles of the 1980s, and who continue to remain prisoners of that past.

Sourabh Gupta is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS) in Washington, D.C.