U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing to deliver his first State of the Union address. The speech, scheduled for Jan. 30, will carry all the usual pomp and ceremony: the flurry of autographs and handshakes as the president enters the U.S. House chamber; the vice president and speaker of the house's awkwardly intense gazes on the president as he gives the address; the contrived anecdotes about special guests in the audience designed to underscore the president's populist image; the opposition party's coordinated acts of protest by refusing to stand and applaud. Political theater aside, however, the president will be addressing his country -- and, by extension, the world -- in a year in which anxiety over the future of trade and the prospect of great power conflict tempers tepid optimism toward global growth. As an accompaniment to this year's State of the Union address, I'll take a stab at summarizing...
