As the second Trump administration rolls out its priorities, one thing is clear: Tariffs are an underlying foreign-policy principle of the “Trump doctrine.” Brad Setser joins FP’s Ravi Agrawal to discuss. Register now. 

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If you only listened to the Trump administration’s pronouncements or only read the deer-in-the-headlights accounts provided by assorted legacy journalists, you might conclude that the new administration has already built up an irresistible head of steam. Given Trump’s monarchical pretensions, he’d undoubtedly like us all to think he is unbound by limits and that resistance is futile. That is not the case, however, and we should not mistake Trump’s bombastic return and far-reaching early initiatives for unstoppable momentum. On the contrary, we are more likely to look back on this period as the highwater mark of Trumpian hubris. Making lavish promises is easy; delivering positive results is a whole lot harder.

Trump’s skills should not be underestimated, of course. He’s been extremely good at persuading banks to lend him money for dubious business ventures and equally good at getting gullible customers to pay for things he never delivered. He has proven to be remarkably adept at persuading voters that the United States was in desperate shape (no matter what the facts were) and that he alone could fix it, in good part because he is equally adept at finding fictitious enemies to blame for different problems. He’s in a class of his own at avoiding punishment for past crimes and pretty darn good at extracting benefits to himself, his family, and his pals. And let’s be honest: He’s also benefited from his willingness to challenge orthodoxies that deserved to be questioned, most notably the foreign-policy establishment’s tendency to drag the United States into unnecessary and unsuccessful wars.

If you only listened to the Trump administration’s pronouncements or only read the deer-in-the-headlights accounts provided by assorted legacy journalists, you might conclude that the new administration has already built up an irresistible head of steam. Given Trump’s monarchical pretensions, he’d undoubtedly like us all to think he is unbound by limits and that resistance is futile. That is not the case, however, and we should not mistake Trump’s bombastic return and far-reaching early initiatives for unstoppable momentum. On the contrary, we are more likely to look back on this period as the highwater mark of Trumpian hubris. Making lavish promises is easy; delivering positive results is a whole lot harder.

Trump’s skills should not be underestimated, of course. He’s been extremely good at persuading banks to lend him money for dubious business ventures and equally good at getting gullible customers to pay for things he never........

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