Trumped loudly boasted that there was nothing Canada or Mexico could do to stop the impending tariffs he announced this past weekend. Nothing. Yet by mid afternoon on Monday Trump had paused the tariffs saying he got what he wanted from those two countries. Did he?
He ended the Canadian tariffs because Canada offered up an additional 1.3 billion dollars of border spending to strengthen the border. SOMETHING CANADA ALREADY OFFERED UP IN DEC 2024. He also got Canada to appoint a border czar. A political post of equal consequence as our czars in the US - meaning a post
where talk is cheap and actions are nowhere to be seen.
He ended the Mexico tariffs because Mexico said it would send 10,000 troops to the border to tighten border security. Mexico often moves troops to the border anyway. Note that in April 2021 Mexico moved 10,000 (I've seen that number somewhere....) troops to the border simply based on a REQUEST from
President Biden.
What we have here is Trump demanding actions from Canada and Mexico (ones they've already previously made), then loudly proclaiming victory by claiming those renewed actions as concessions.
Why would Trump do this? Well, the US stock Markets opened particularly angry on Monday. One, Two, and even Three percent declines in the S&P and the NASDAQ at the open that persisted throughout the morning. Toss in a DOW that quickly declined by 600 points and we get a full fledged temper tantrum. All the way up to the time Trump began backing off his tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
Maybe Trump was right in that there was nothing Canada and Mexico could do to stop the tariffs. But there sure was one thing that could stop him in his tracks. The US stock markets. Maybe other countries can't stop Trump. Maybe political opposition in this country can't stop him. Maybe our judicial system can't stop him. Maybe even our constitution can't stop Trump. But the US stock markets can easily stop him dead in his tracks. That was evident to all who watched those markets roar and Trump's surrender on Monday.
It appears that Trump was all in on America suffering some pain from his tariffs. But not so much when the US stock markets started applying some pain to American wallets. :-)