US' trade war on several fronts

The United States' trade war with China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Australia so far is a relatively small percentage of total trade with these countries. However, there is a distinct possibility of escalation given that these countries have either announced or are considering announcing retaliatory measures which prompted President Donald Trump to warn, in a tweet, that in the event of retaliation against US exports, further import tariffs would be slapped on other imports from these countries.
The question is whether Trump's tariffs are having any salutary effect on US trade deficit? The US Commerce Department recently noted that the trade gap narrowed 2.1 percent to 46.2 billion dollars, the smallest since September last year. Data for March was revised to show the trade deficit falling to 47.2 billion dollars, instead of the previously reported 49 billion dollars. However, with retaliatory measures already announced by several countries and the EU this may be short-lived at best. Additionally, slapping higher tariffs on imports may not achieve a decline in US consumer demand but simply raise prices domestically.
Trump's rationale periodically released through his preferred communication medium, twitter, has been pretty much what developing countries like Pakistan have consistently complained about as they struggle with a burgeoning trade deficit attributed to unfair trade practices defined as imposing restrictions on their exports, through tariffs/quotas and/or non-tariff barriers, while insisting on 'free' trade on their potential exports. This rationale is particularly applicable on international trade by countries like Pakistan with reliance on imports of high value-added products and fuel while exporting farm products as well as relatively low value-added products, including textiles whose imports by the developed countries is governed by special restrictive quota policies. However, the same is not applicable to US exports and imports with the International Monetary Fund as well as Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) expressing concerns about the world economy if the trade war escalates. The reason: international trade (exports as well as imports) constitute a significant portion of any country's Gross Domestic Product.
The World Bank and OECD data reveals that while in 1960, total world trade accounted for 24 percent of world GDP yet by 2016; it was a whopping 56.4 percent - more than half of the world's total GDP. For the US total trade with the rest of the world accounted for 9 percent of its GDP but by 2016 it rose to 27 percent - a figure lower than Germany's 84 percent, France's 60 percent, the UK's 59 percent and China's 37 percent. However, with more than a quarter of all GDP sourced to international trade, any attempt by Trump to reduce trade would have a medium to long-term repercussions on employment opportunities in export sectors in particular as well as on the economy's growth rate in general.
Trump, however, in a 2 March 2018 tweet argued that: "when a country (USA) is losing billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example when we are down 100 billion dollars with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore - we win big. It's easy!" But he failed to mention that the US had a whopping trade surplus in services - to the tune of 244 billion dollars last year and a significant part of the trade surplus enjoyed by several countries with the US flows back into US stocks, and bonds and treasury bills as well as investment in real estate and in manufacturing sector.
To conclude, the Trump policy and warnings with respect to US trade with the world appears to be an ill advised policy whose cost would be borne by Americans especially if, as appears to be the case, the world does not back down and retaliates.