Donald Trump caves yet again

| 4:08 pm EDT May 1, 2018
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Here’s the thing about Donald Trump, particularly of late: he arrogantly runs his mouth on Twitter, talking about the things he’s going to do or the things he’d like to do. Then when it comes down to it, he quietly doesn’t do anything about it. We’ve taken it as a sign that he’s now petrified of making a false move that could abruptly end his collapsing presidency. He just made another such move.

Remember all of Donald Trump’s brash chest beating about the need for steel and aluminum tariffs against every foreign nation? He seemed to be trying to impress the blue collar workers and xenophobes in his base, as he played it up to be part of his “America First” campaign. Of course anyone with even a basic grasp of economic or international trade is well aware that these kinds of tariffs only end up hurting both sides, and there’s literally nothing to be gained from them. Trump appears to know this as well, despite all his bluster. How do we know?

Trump announced today that he’s not going to enact his proposed aluminum and steel tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and the European Union after all. Technically he’s postponing the planned implementation date. But since there’s no new implementation date, it sounds like he’s simply putting it to bed.

Donald Trump has long operated under the premise that the people in his own base aren’t going to hear any real news, because they only trust him and the pro-Trump propaganda outlets he steers them toward. He’s likely betting on his base never finding out that he caved on tariffs against U.S. allies. But no one should be surprised. Trump runs his mouth and then he caves. He takes out his frustrations by firing people like Rex TIllerson, whom no one was going to miss anyway. But on the decisions that could harm him, he’s increasingly not a man of action. We think he’s hiding under his desk.