Tinus - 4/9/2025 06:11

I'd say there is no plan; there aren't even any concepts of a plan.

I realise that the sheer intellectual difficulty of crafting an informed political view leads people to tribalism out of convenience.

But just admitting that Trump is out of his element wouldn't be so bad right now, would it?

The chaos fits Trump's business acumen to a tee: he is a mostly legitimate criminal bully who does not understand fairness, nor the importance of being part of an ecosystem, goodwill, or trust. To him, everything is a zero-sum game, and he'd rather burn the place down than lose or admit defeat. Or even admit he was wrong. He pounces, insults, and behaves irrationally and erratically. He fights, and while you hope it's for your benefit, it's like watching a random drunk trying to fight his own shadow.

Even if you're willing to take massive hits to your own economy in order to create maximum leverage, this would be one of the dumbest ways to go about it. Like the crackpot idea that trade imbalances are always bad and the childish calculations behind it. It's so damn amateurish. Not a signal of strength, but the opposite!

And to top it all off, taking on the whole world at once creates so many problems for the US that even the somewhat insecure EU realises that sitting back and waiting for cracks to appear is the smarter move.

And Trump will tell you exactly what those cracks are. You only have to invert everything he said in the last 24 hours:

"I cancelled the meetings with China" = "There are no meetings planned right now"
"They are making a mistake" = "I made a mistake"
"They are panicking" = "I panicked"

And the larger, less desperate countries realise this, while chomping on popcorn.

Every explainer his apologists offered in the last couple of weeks has been wrong so far. Only the most loyal (or desperate) people who hitched their wagon to supporting Trump are still doing so.

Not a good look.