President Trump, a self-proclaimed master dealmaker, is rapidly perfecting another art form during his second term: the “strategic” retreat.

Indeed, despite building his brand as a cutthroat negotiator, Trump is demonstrating a pattern of blinking and reversing himself when the pressure mounts.

Trump’s tendency to totally switch course — whether on tariff policies, firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell or foreign policy — raises serious questions about the substance of his showmanship, its impact on the American economy, and on our geopolitical standing.

Consider the events of just the past few weeks.

After publicly threatening to fire Powell over his refusal to lower interest rates — threats which sent financial markets into a spiral — Trump backtracked, telling reporters that he had “no intention” of firing the Fed chair.

Then, Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent acknowledged that the 145 percent tariffs on China, instituted just weeks earlier, are unsustainable and that they’d probably be cut in half.

Those two reversals come on the heels of Trump instituting a 90-day pause on the previously announced “reciprocal tariffs” on virtually every country........

© The Hill