The Trump administration is forfeiting a great US asset. The US has long been at the center of world trade, and the US dollar has become the currency-of-currencies, the numeraire. That fact has worked in our national favor in countless ways. Now, some of my readers might say that it is "about time the US lose this privileged position." But of course the Trumpets won't say that. They're the "America First" administration after all. Yet their actions will remove American firstness in one very important respect. How? Well, one object of Chinese policy for a long time has been to rebuild the famed "Silk Road," the trade route leading from China through the Middle East, to Ottoman lands and northeastern Africa. Marco Polo tapped into it when he wasn't too busy inventing swimming pool games. China wants to revive that route, and wants it emphatically to include all of Europe this time, not just for an occasional traveler, and ideally it woul...