• Good Morning! President Trump joked at the Gridiron dinner that he loves chaos, but inside the White House aides say “these are the darkest days in at least half a year … and they worry just how much farther President Trump and his administration may plunge into unrest and malaise before they start to recover,” The Washington Post reports. Even if Trump isn’t as angry and isolated as media reports say, he has zigzagged on policy in a way that has baffled and dismayed congressional leaders, the financial markets and many in his own administration.

• Just a couple of months ago, the stock market seemed unstoppable. No more. By launching a trade war with aggressive new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, President Trump has paved the way for “a broader protectionist trade policy that could eventually include other commodities and products,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Investor confidence could continue to suffer, disrupting the global economic growth that has driven the stock market and other investments for more than a year.

• Already, European officials are planning retaliatory actions to the president’s trade salvo, targeting products from red states like Harley-Davidsons (made in Speaker Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin) and bourbon (from Mitch McConnell’s Kentucky). It’s doubtful such moves would hinder Trump, who White House officials say won’t exempt allies like Canada and Europe from sanctions.

• The trade kerfuffle has upset, if not completely derailed, NAFTA talks, with Mexican and Canadian officials wondering why they should sign any agreement with the United State while President Trump is unleashing new restrictions on previously tariff-free sectors of trade. On Wednesday, the Ripon Society hosts a discussion and debate on “The Future of NAFTA,” featuring the Mexican and Canadian ambassadors to the United States.

• The Economic Report of the President is prepared annually for Congress, outlining the administration’s economic priorities and making predictions about just what will happen if they are carried out. Much of the attention at Wednesday’s hearing by the Joint Economic Committee on this year’s report is likely to focus on – you guessed it – trade sanctions.

• President Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday and will host the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on Tuesday. The Swedish meeting comes roughly a year after Trump took to Twitter and claimed, without evidence, that immigrants in Sweden were committing terrorist attacks. On Wednesday, the Economic Club of Washington hosts Prime Minister Netanyahu.

• On Tuesday the Senate Armed Service Committee hosts Daniel Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, and Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley Jr., head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to get their assessment of “Worldwide Threats.”

• At least two Cabinet secretaries will travel to Capitol Hill this week to lay out plans for their departments’ budgets for fiscal 2019 to panels of the House Appropriations committee. On Tuesday, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta will testify about that department’s budget needs before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies. And on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will appear before the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.

• Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao will testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Tuesday as it begins “Examining the Administration’s Infrastructure Proposal,” a $1.5 trillion behemoth to which the administration has pledged contributing only $200 billion. The remainder allegedly would come from public-private partnerships and state and local governments. On Wednesday, the same committee will hear more about “Building a 21st Century Infrastructure for America: Long-Term Funding for Highways and Transit Programs.” One big unknown: how steel and aluminum tariffs will affect the cost of infrastructure rebuilding programs.

• You might have heard: This year’s flu vaccine did not do much to prevent massive outbreaks of the flu virus across the United States. And while the worst of the flu season is past, a secondary strain of the virus could lead to a late-season bump in cases. The worst flu pandemic since the 2009-2010 swine flu outbreak has caused at least 114 child deaths – in part because the flu vaccine concocted by the CDC this year proved only 25 percent effective against the dominant strain of the virus, known as H3N2. On Thursday, the Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy & Commerce Committee will hear from HHS, NIH, the FDA and the CDC as it begins “Examining U.S. Public Health Preparedness for and Response Efforts to Seasonal Influenza.”