C. S. Lewis said that people become friends because “they see the same truth.” On a recent episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box Tom Friedman and Steve Bannon looked downright chummy defending President Trump’s recent decision to raise tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imports. Perhaps this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Friedman might even snag an invitation to Bannon’s new alt-right academy housed in a former Italian monastery. The two could don matching robes and co-teach a seminar on How Trump Saved Western Civilization. Both men seem to think that the fate of the free world, or at least “free market democratic capitalism,” is at stake in the US-China trade war.

The Friedman/Bannon story goes something like this: For decades China broke the rules of international trade, engaging in illegal subsidies, intellectual property theft, industrial espionage, forced technology transfers, dumping, slave labor, etc. But for a long time nobody really cared because China dealt mainly in toys and t-shirts.