Donald Trump, as we're all learning in graphic detail, is a creature of habit. Old haunts, old feuds, old ideas. The global community should play into this predisposition and coax him back to the New York hotel he once proudly owned.
The Plaza Hotel isn't just an important episode in the real-estate-mogul-turned-U.S. president's history. It was the site of the 1985 Plaza Accord on currencies that still stands a testament to what world powers can achieve when they cooperate. Granted, working jointly toward a common end doesn't seem like a Trump disposition. But a Plaza reunion may be just the thing to talk Team Trump down from the trade war ledge on which it's perched.
The focus of a new accord wouldn't be Japan, but China. Beijing is struggling to support the yuan as traders bid it lower. That battle, which has driven China's foreign reserves below the $3 trillion mark, is largely aimed at placating Trump. Sure, some of this support effort is about halting capital outflows. But Beijing's duel with traders who think the yuan is overvalued is about avoiding the 45 percent tariffs Trump pledged on the campaign trail.