Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
A second day of market devastation shook Washington on Friday, vanishing more than $5 trillion in value in one of the largest 48-hour losses on record — an extraordinary rout caused not by pandemic, war, terrorism or bank failure, but by policy set by the American president.
The policy, announced by President Trump on Wednesday, would levy steep tariffs on nearly every nation in the world in the coming days, starting with a base tariff rate of 10% but climbing higher for some of the largest U.S. trading partners, including China, South Korea, Japan and the European Union.
The market drop has prompted a small but influential group of Republican senators to partner with Democrats in a nascent effort to wrest back control over tariff policy from Trump.
“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” said a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”
In Trump’s first term, top aides including Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, and Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, successfully constrained Trump’s tariff agenda.
Aides frequently sought to steer Trump in particular directions during heated Oval Office conversations, according to current and former officials. Trump’s White House then was beset by internal quarrels that spilled into public view, his team of advisers not just clashing on matters of personality but over deep ideological differences.
“In the first term,” a senior White House official said, “everyone thought they were president.”
This time, there was far less internal fighting. The president’s team mounted remarkably little dissent to a sweeping overhaul of trade policy, according to interviews with more than a dozen people inside and outside the administration, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private talks.
