Trump’s trade representative was testifying in favor of the reciprocal tariff scheme when Trump announced that he had paused it for 90 days. His people then spun the announcement as the logical conclusion of a grand scheme, not a U-turn. Trump subsequently undercut them by admitting that he had suddenly changed his mind under pressure from the bond market. His intuition told him that the pause was necessary to avoid an economic meltdown.
There are two lessons here. First, working for Trump is very difficult; you have to be willing to change your position on a dime, while pretending that the narrative hasn’t changed. Second, Trump is incapable of setting out clear and convincing positions and then sticking to them. We are going to be living with this kind of chaos for the next four years.
American businessmen voted enthusiastically for Trump because they believed he told the truth about tax cuts and deregulation and lied about tariffs. As of today, the opposite is true. Learn to live with the uncertainty you voted for, guys.