According to Donald Trump, decades of economic orthodox failed millions of Americans. But the details of his alternatives – how his administration asserts exactly how it makes America great – change daily.
The US President has declared it a significant milestone for this week’s second term as he announced his first major trade deal since taking office after he accelerated talks with the UK.
But that came in Trump’s position as anything, from tariffs on strollers and films to whether or not his administration wants to attack such global deals.
Companies around the world are trying to agree with the rapid speed of President Niejerk. Free world leaders can announce, coordinate and shelve policies as quickly as they can publish social media posts.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” observed Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chairman (and Trump World Persona Non-Grata), on Wednesday. “When you talk to business, market participants, or forecasters, everyone is waiting to see how development unfolds.”
Take the stroller. This was the week Trump claimed he was more important than other prices.
After pledging to lower prices, the president wanted to focus on those who fell in an interview with NBC News that aired last weekend. However, his interviewer observed that some people rose. An estimated 97% of strollers purchased in the US have risen significantly in prices, for example, since Trump dramatically hiked tariffs in the country.
The president didn’t have it. The (lower) price of fuel is “thousands of times more important than a stroller,” he argued. Later in the interview, he requested more positive questions. “What do you know? A big gasoline company,” he said. “Strollers are not a big company.”
On Sunday, the message was rarely clearer. Certainly, a stroller may be more expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, “it’s peanuts.” Other costs are thousands of times more important.
By Wednesday, the administration was moving in a different direction. Potential tariff exemptions for childcare and baby products, car seats, cribs and yes, strollers were “under consideration,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent told Congress.
Then there was a movie. This was also the week Trump rose to highlight for Hollywood.
The president suddenly announced concerns that Hollywood had “a very fast death” over the weekend. He wrote to the True Society that would be levied 100% tariffs on “every film that comes to our country, produced on foreign lands.”
Many US blockbusters have been produced, filmed and edited in a variety of countries. There was no details on how the policy would be implemented. It was unclear which films weren’t facing tariffs.
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However, on Sunday, the message was rarely clearer. Hollywood was “devastated” by the rise of filmmaking elsewhere. This has become a national security threat. And US officials soon begin work on sudden tariffs.
By Monday, the administration was moving in a different direction. White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement that “there is no final decision,” and that the administration is “exploring all options.”
And then we’ll do a trade. This was also the week when Trump, author of Trump: The Art of the Deal, announced he had finished with them.
On the trajectory of the campaign, he repeatedly promised to end the war and negotiate an agreement to lean the world economy in favor of his country. But earlier this week, surrounded by cameras in an oval office, the president accused the media of sticking.
“You keep writing about trading, trading,” he told reporters. “I wish they would stop asking, ‘How many times are you signing this week?'” One day, we come and we give you 100 deals.
“And I don’t think my people are making that clear,” the president said. The US signs “some deals,” but tariffs were a “much larger” focus. Foreign American companies “have to pay for shopping,” he added. “Think of us as a super-upscale store.”
On Tuesday, the message was rarely clearer. Trade contracts were everything, not the end. The US makes demands from its trading partners, and unless they agree, it will continue to strike them with tariffs.
By Thursday, the administration was moving in a different direction. Trump announced “a deal that maximizes what we’re doing” and declared that the trade deal with the UK will be the first.
In fact, the UK and US deals were unfinished. The announcement felt hurrying: it corresponds to diplomacy with holding a wedding reception after engagement, but before the ceremony. British Prime Ministers Trump and Keer Starmer admitted that certain details have not been finalized yet.
But the president was off – “Many trade deals in Hopper, all good (great!) contracts,” he wrote the next day about the true society – it takes us to China.
No economy is going to be more aggressively targeted or hit harder by this administration. Trump claims that any pain, whether it’s at a higher price or an empty shelf, is worth the burden as Washington pushed back violently against Beijing. “It’s going to be worth the price you have to pay,” he wrote in February about his tariff strategy.
Trump has sparked a trade war between the two biggest economies of the world by increasing US tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% and urging rapid retaliation. “They deserve it,” he told ABC News last week. “They were tearing us apart like no one had torn us.”
However, today the administration appears to be moving in a different direction. Bescent was sent to Geneva to negotiate with Chinese officials.
For months, the president, who has argued that the US must maintain its boundary with China, stressed that the Treasury Secretary is leading these talks, but threw for his two cents. “The 80% tariff on China seems right,” he wrote about the true society, proposing dramatic reductions. “To Scott B.”
Whose speculation is what will happen next? But it’s safe to say that you probably won’t become Scott B.