The art of spoiling Trump's deal: Sit back and wait

It seems to have been going on much longer, but it has been only one month since Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day,” when he did his big reset on the world’s economy by raising tariffs on goods exported to this country to 10 percent, with higher “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50 percent on 57 countries. The tariffs were supposed to take effect on April 9, but Trump chose that day to suspend for 90 days all the reciprocal tariffs except those on China, which he raised to 145 percent, because, he said on Truth Social, China had been “ripping off the U.S.A.”

Fifty-seven countries and the rest of the world had waited, and Trump caved, a grand total of seven days after stock markets around the world crashed and the dread “R” word, recession, began being uttered by cable news hosts and hitting newspaper headlines.

It took only 30 more days for Trump to cave on his China tariffs. On Monday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. and China would be suspending the reciprocal tariffs of 125 percent the two nations had imposed on one another. The original 10 percent U.S. tariff would remain, with China maintaining its 10 percent tariff that had been imposed in answer to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff. The U.S. is maintaining some kind of 20 percent “fentanyl” tariff on China, but that one is likely not long for this world, either.

What happened in the intervening month? China just waited. Reports of empty shipping berths at ports all along the West Coast began appearing. Talk of “empty shelves” started to hit the airwaves. Trump, pressed on what kind of Christmas American kids were going to have with all shipping from China at a standstill, began babbling about girls having to settle for “two” dolls rather than “thirty,” and “five” pencils instead of “250.” Where the hell he came up with dolls and pencils and those specific numbers was never explained.

Over in China, in Xi Jinping’s office, no explanation was necessary. Trump was panicking. So Xi and his trade representatives sat by the phone. Last week, it rang. Who knows what Trump’s trade representative said, but it had to be some version of “can we talk, please?”

I’ll give you two guesses who had the upper hand in Geneva. I take that back: one guess. The answer should give you a hint why it took only two days for an agreement to be reached. Let’s allow U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to explain: “It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to come to an agreement, which reflects that perhaps the differences were not so large as maybe thought,” he explained on Monday.

Differences? There weren’t any differences before Donald Trump decided it was time to accuse China of “ripping us off” again. He used the same charge the first time he was in the Oval Office. China was ripping us off, so Trump made a new “deal” with them, which of course he later accused Joe Biden of screwing up. Let’s just listen to master-negotiator Trump describe what happened back then. “We had a deal where they opened up their country to trade with the United States, and they took that away at the last moment," Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Just a brief note: China “opened up their country” to trade with the U.S., signing a bi-lateral trade deal in 1979, and trade has remained open since then.

“And then I canceled the whole thing,” Trump claimed, apparently forgetting that he had just accused China of canceling the deal “at the last moment.” He continued: “And then six months later, we ended up doing a smaller deal. But it was a big deal. It was $50 billion worth of product that they were going to purchase from our farmers, etc, and we agreed to that."

Trump wasn’t finished explaining the big trade deal he did in his first term:

People thought it was 15 because they were doing 15. We made it 50 because I misunderstood the 15. I thought they said — I said, you got to get 50 because when I asked — if you remember the story — when I asked, what are we doing with them? My secretary of agriculture at the time, Sonny Perdue, said, uh, sir, it's about $15 billion and we're asking for 15. And I thought he said 50. So, I said — so they came back with the deal at 15 and I said, no way, I want 50 because you said 50. They said, sir, we didn't say that. Anyway. Bottom line, I said, go back and ask for 50. And they gave us 50, and they were honoring the deal, and we would call them up a lot for the corn and for the wheat and for everything.

Do you see why Xi Jinping just sat in his office for 30 days and waited? He knew exactly who was on the other end of the negotiation, who had told one of his flunkies to call up and ask for a meeting in Geneva. He didn’t have to do anything more than wait.

Waiting will get you a lot when you’re dealing with Donald Trump. Just ask Vladimir Putin. Trump flapped his jaws for months on the campaign trail saying he would end the war in Ukraine on “day one.” Near the end of the campaign, he started saying he would end it before he was inaugurated.

More than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian airstrikes, missiles and drone attacks over the last three years. On April 24, Russia launched an 11-hour missile attack on Kyiv, killing 12 people and wounding 90. After the attack, Trump declared himself “not happy” with the Russian assault on Kyiv. He was sufficiently disturbed that he went on Truth Social and posted, “Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform, adding “Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!”

On Sunday, Russia answered that plea by sending more than 100 drones into Ukraine in a nighttime attack after rejecting calls for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire from Ukraine and members of the European Union.

Trump has not responded to Putin’s latest attack on Ukraine, but last week, Trump told a gathering of top donors at Mar-a-Lago that his attempts to end the war in Ukraine were “keeping him up at night,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Trump said the problem he had with Putin was that he wants “the whole thing.” The Journal reported that Trump was referring to Putin’s ambition to take all of Ukraine with his war.

Trump has admitted to having spoken to Putin on the phone several times since being elected last year. Putin launched his war in February of 2022. The war has passed its third year since Trump took office in January. Putin’s forces have continued to make small gains in Eastern Ukraine and have pushed Ukrainian forces into a tiny defensive perimeter in the Kursk region of Russia, which Ukraine invaded and has occupied for months. The war has turned into a bloody stalemate. Both sides have suffered a steady drumbeat of casualties with neither side making decisive gains against the other.

Trump’s efforts to broker a peace in Gaza have failed to produce movement as well. After telling the world that the U.S. would take over Gaza and turn it into a kind of Mar-a-Lago on the Mediterranean, last week, it was reported that Trump is frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump began a four-day trip to the Middle East on Monday with no plans for a stop in Israel, which has been read as a signal of Trump’s displeasure with Netanyahu. Netanyahu has been waiting Trump out. So Hamas has taken to talking directly with the U.S., brokering the release of the last living American hostage on Monday in a deal that “largely circumvented the Israeli government,” according to the New York Times. But there is still no deal, as Israel announces a plan to take to Gaza with bulldozers, flattening the place even more than they had with bombing, while food aid to the war ravished region remains blocked.

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Trump has not even had luck with his campaign against the Houthis. Last week, he kinda-sorta declared victory, announcing that the U.S. was stopping its bombing of the Houthis because they had agreed to stop attacking U.S. warships in the Red Sea. Trump had declared at the start of his campaign against the Houthis that they would be “annihilated.” The Houthis knew better. They waited him out.

The Trump bombing campaign cost more than $1 billion. All the Houthis did was dig their weapons emplacements deeper into hills and mountainsides and wait for pauses in U.S. bombardment. Then they continued their attacks. It was reported last week that the U.S. had expended so much expensive munitions that senior American military commanders feared it was cutting into their munitions stockpiles intended for potential conflicts in Asia.

The Houthis fired one of their missiles at Israel on Friday, despite the putative ceasefire announced by Trump. The U.S. lost two F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets of the type used to attack Houthi positions in Yemen, not to enemy fire, but because they accidentally slipped off an aircraft carrier. The F-18 jets cost $67 million each.

The Houthis, supported largely by Iran, just sat waiting in their fortified bunkers watching as “Signalgate” unfolded, exposing the use of an insecure communications app to discuss one of the top-secret F-18 attacks. Not long afterwards, Trump declared victory and let the Houthis off. They were too expensive, and they took too long for the impatient American president. He wanted the Houthis taken care of in 30 days. It didn’t work. They outlasted the Prince of Impatience, and he moved on.

After all, Ukraine, and Gaza, and the dregs of his trade war with China and the rest of the world await.