American Battleground: How Trump’s big bet on tariffs went bad

President Donald Trump’s massive wager on tariffs with your money came together over years. It took just days to fall apart. This is Part 4 of an in-depth, contemporaneous look at the first 100 days of Trump’s second term.

When the stock market started chewing through retirement accounts like a wheat thresher, business owners began howling about the risk of ruination, and economic analysts commenced clanging warning bells of a possible worldwide recession, many political watchers thought surely President Donald Trump would take notice. They were certain he would finally see the existential danger of slapping punishing tariffs on scores of countries and step back from his potentially catastrophic plan. Instead, in the 10th week of his new term, the 47th president is leaning into his latest favorite metaphor: that international trade is a high-stakes card game and he is the master strategist. Only he knows which countries hold a strong hand, which do not, and how bets should be placed. And he is laying down a massive wager. “For decades our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” he proclaims to an adoring crowd of Republican VIPs. They have assembled at the White House to celebrate what he calls his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Up at the podium, Trump gleefully displays a chart thick with numbers purporting to show just how much each country will pony up for access to the great American marketplace. But experts who have played the trade game much longer quickly call Trump’s big move on the second day of April a fool’s bet — one that could poison US trade relations with those friendly partners he mentioned and open the door for less friendly competitors to capitalize on his misstep. Skeptics say Trump is flirting with the kind of failure that can unwind a presidency. Trump meets their warnings with a jutted jaw and declarations that he will not blink. To understand how Trump came so quickly to such a perilous spot after much talk, many threats and occasional applications of tariffs in much smaller degrees, it’s worth considering what those close to him have said for years. He truly believes the ability to tax imported goods is a near-mythical power to wipe away trade deficits, stop illegal immigration, control trafficking in illicit drugs, and make the world bow to his will. Aside from military force, he seems to see tariffs as the most direct way a president can rule over not just the United States, but everyone, everywhere.