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Beggars, Choosers
Who's begging and who's choosing in Trump's little psychodrama?
mister mix
April 25, 2025
This, from the guy who said he’d end the war in Ukraine on day one:
And this from the guy who said the countries would run to the table to negotiate:
This morning, the White House announced that trade talks with China continue, albeit at a staff level. This came after a flurry of reports that Trump is planning to unilaterally ramp back the embargo-level tariffs he imposed on China earlier this month, advance notice that cheered Wall Street. Then Chinese officials said that the White House is wrong. There actually are no talks. And Trump must take the first step, unilaterally undoing the tariffs he had already imposed.
He appears set to do just that.
This comes just three days after the CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot met with Trump at the White House and reportedly told him that his tariffs would result in empty shelves and product shortages in as little as two weeks.
And this and this:
The head of Harvard University doubled down on his defiance against the Trump administration Wednesday, saying the Ivy League school would not compromise on certain issues despite the federal government’s threat to freeze more than $2 billion in funding.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, Harvard President Alan Garber said the school had “no choice” but to fight back against what it believes is federal overreach and an illegal attempt by the government to withhold funding as leverage to control academic decision-making.
“We are defending what I believe is one of the most important lynchpins of the American economy and way of life — our universities,” Garber said.
Faculties at several Big Ten universities have asked their administrations to consider a joint defense pact in the face of threats to higher education institutions from the Trump administration, multiple outlets reported.
The nonsensical claim that the Harvard letter was a mistake makes the inevitable backdown even worse.
That said, the most politically damaging of these three backdowns is the one where Trump might not be able to back down: Chinese tariffs. If China is smart, and they are, they’ll drag out negotiations until shelves at big box retailers are empty. It’s not clear that Chinese imports can be turned back on like a water spigot:
"For the week beginning May 4, San Pedro Bay complex looks like it's going to have a 44% drop in vessel calls when you compare that year-to-year," Port of Long Beach CEO Mario Cordero said. "That's a significant number."
If almost half of the Asian goods imported through the main port on the West Coast are going to be missing in 10 days, there’s going to be an impact no matter what Trump negotiates with the Chinese.
It would be funny if we lived in another country that might benefit from Trump’s stupidity, but we don’t. As usual, he overplayed every hand, if he even had a hand in the first place.
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