beggar thy neighbor

Referring to an economic policy that seeks to improve domestic economic conditions at the expense of other countries. Hyphenated if used as a modifier before a noun. Yes, but putting these high tariffs on imports would only address our country's economic depression in a beggar-thy-neighbor sort of way. If other countries adopt similar beggar-thy-neighbor policies, couldn't that trigger a global economic depression? Clearly, they don't care one bit about how we're impacted by these beggar-thy-neighbor tariffs!