U.S. President Donald Trump is playing hard-ball with China over trade, and the worry-warts are fretting that he's going to start a real trade war by accident. The bigger threat, however, is that he will push first China, and then the whole world, into a deep recession.

It's been 10 years since the last recession (2008-09), and that one was a doozy. Recessions tend to come around once a decade, so one is due about now anyway — and the Chinese economy is so shaky that almost any serious shock could topple it into the pit. The rest of the world would follow.

A little more than a week ago, according to both sides, the U.S.-China trade deal was almost done, but then (according to Washington) China started to "renege" on parts of the deal they had agreed to. Washington is probably telling the truth about that: It's practically standard in the closing stages of any negotiation with Beijing.