Trump's The Art of The Fold

Trump just backed down on his economic offensive, again. Don’t let MAGA paint this U-Turn as a win.

Trump is quietly winding down his tariffs — and guess what? He got no concessions from China, no return of manufacturing jobs, and no shift in global capital flows that benefit the U.S. Instead world leaders are planning on how to navigate the future world trade economy without the U.S.

Since taking office, Trump has treated trade as a game of chicken. He seemed to childishly think that waging economic war against the entire globe would show American exceptionalism and force other countries to bend the knee.

But the tariff war backfired. The logic was flawed from the start, it only pushed the U.S. further into isolation without securing any diplomatic or economic wins. You don’t need to launch a global trade assault just to get an ally like South Korea to negotiate with an incoming U.S. administration. No serious politician ever thought the U.S. had to threaten Canada just to get on the phone with someone. The absolute number of phone calls being the proof offered by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt that the U.S. was still respected on the global stage in light of the tariffs.

The Trump administration now seems to be quietly acknowledging this failure. Not by admitting it to the millions of Americans who thought China would pay the tariffs, but in the most cowardice way through quietly reversing course on monetary and trade policy. Trump launched a global tariff war, and now he’s the first to blink by completely exempting tariffs across the largest sectors.

Mere days after imposing 125% tariffs on China, Trump exempted smartphones and computers, the largest import into the United States, from them. The entire campaign, he got away with saying these tariffs were going to pay for everything from childcare to the national debt so we abolish income tax, just to completely forfeit all of the largest sectors extra income?

If this is the “Art of the Deal,” does that just mean Trump giving up our largest leverage point against China before getting any concessions? In fact, Trump was getting publicly trolled with China imposed a 34% tariff on America — a nod to the 34 felony counts in which Donald Trump was found guilty.

In a similar fashion, Trump spent a week threatening to fire Jerome Powell, his handpicked Fed chair, accusing him of being too slow to act. But when the dollar slid, treasury yields were down and the stock market looked as volatile as $TRUMP coin, Trump backed off that threat too.

We must stay focused on the truth. Trump supporters have a unique way of always contorting their principles to rationalize his moves, even from one day to the next. I've heard that Trump is both trying to reach manufacturing, while also trying to use this as a negotiating tactic, while also using this as a method to raise revenue, while also planning to refinance our debt while markets are down — whatever story to avoid the truth that Donald Trump is a terrible businessman who knows nothing about the economy. All of these things are incredibly contradictory and vague enough that Trump supporters are rabidly defending whatever move he makes that day — that's where we come in.

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