President Donald Trump officially fulfilled his campaign promise on Wednesday. This unleashed massive tariffs, sparked fears of the World Trade War and prompted major questions about what became the centre of his economic agenda. What is his final game?
In both size and scope, Trump’s ultimate blueprint on global tariffs – a baseline tariff of 10% in almost every country, with more numbers expected in countries where the US has a larger trade deficit. Global financial markets have fallen, and Trump’s Republican supporters are trying to pass the political stakes of not criticizing him, while also trying to understand the economic dangers that could arrive ahead of the 2026 midterm elections in which the GOP seeks to defend slim homes and Senate majority.
Trump’s team has so far had no clear message explaining the strategy behind the tariffs behind the decision that his political allies would go far beyond what their supporters expected.
Additionally, multiple elements of drastic measures made it seem like the administration had run through the process. This ran through that process, including the decision to first list the tariff numbers on the White House list published Thursday, published on Wednesday.
A day after the announcement, Trump had not helped provide that clarity, posting an inexplicable message about the true society that “the patient was alive” as a clear reference to the US economy, and that although no tariffs have been imposed, it was “completed.”
“The surgery is over! The patient is alive and healing,” he posted on the day Dow Jones’ industrial average lost over 1,600 points. “The prognosis is that patients are stronger, bigger, better and more resilient than ever before.”
“Make America great again!!!” he added.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump doubled the analogy when defending financial markets’ move to reporters asking about tanking a day after the tariff announcement.
“I think it’s going very well,” he said. “It was a surgery like when a patient was manipulated.”
At various points, Trump has framed tariff plans as a national revenue generator, and last week said tariffs would “have billions, even trillions, of dollars coming to our country.” At the same time, he discussed them from the perspective of “fairness.” It is the idea that they can be used as a tool to recalibrate the global economy, and according to Trump, it has been plagued by foreign countries using the United States.
Trump has long considered the trade deficit as a “subsidy.” The US offers a different country. Economists have rejected the idea almost uniformly, pointing out that many countries are either too small or too poor to buy enough US goods to offset exports.
The enormous scale of the tariff proposal and lack of clear communication from the administration made Trump supporters skeptical and unsure of what would come next.
“I don’t know,” Trump supporters and donors in 2024 said when asked what they thought Trump’s ultimate goal was. “This is much greater than I think most thoughts will happen during the campaign. I think the best case is for him to quickly acquire some concessions from the country and pull back. I don’t know.”
The Senate GOP aide said White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller spoke with the Senate Speaker at lunchtime on Thursday to address concerns. The person said Miller managed to handle tough questions and built up the strengths in the national security grounds behind reusing key supply chains, taking into account the community crisis.
However, the person said the White House has not yet provided an effective message in other aspects related to widespread tariffs.
“They have a wide and comprehensive theme of what they are trying to say by turning the economy around,” the person said. “The hard part about this is what you say to small businesses who say these tariffs are trying to get me down. And I haven’t heard any convincing stories about it yet.”
The tariffs are giving Congressional Republicans more urgency to pass tax cuts to reduce some of the tariff pressure, the person who believes Trump is “motivated” about trade measures.
“Donald Trump sees everything as negotiation, right?” the person said. “It’s like his worldview, so I think this is negotiations. And I think there are countries that come to the table one by one and have contracts to do business with the world’s number one economy.”
Since the announcement Wednesday, Trump’s advisors have been sent to circulate media interviews to explain the plans. Sometimes the explanation is merely a muddy water.
White House press chief Karoline Leavitt told CNN on Thursday morning Wall Street should “trust President Trump” and that the level of negotiations by other countries would not cut or eliminate plans outlined before tariffs were enacted.
“The president made it clear yesterday that this was not a negotiation. This is a national emergency,” she said.
The White House topic acquired by NBC News also highlighted that tariffs are not a negotiation tool.
However, the message “not negotiations” contradicts Trump’s economic adviser. Trump’s economic adviser claims the move is part of a negotiation ploy to get what’s called “fair trade,” and even Trump himself is inconsistent.
“Taxes give us a great power to negotiate, and we have it all the time,” Trump told reporters in Air Force 1 on Thursday.
Trump’s son Eric posted on X Thursday morning.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday night that tariffs would encourage negotiations by foreign trade partners.
“We have to imagine that many of these countries don’t like the tariffs that will come into effect in the middle of the night tonight, and they’ll want to negotiate,” he said. “Do you think I’m wrong?”
Meanwhile, the Treasury Department of Scott Bescent told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that he was not part of the administration’s customs talks and that he wasn’t sure if negotiations with foreign countries would occur before baseline tariffs come into effect on Saturday.
“I’m not part of the negotiations, so we’ll see,” he said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of calls. I don’t know if there will be negotiations.”
The announcement widely met the Trump campaign’s promise to enact tariffs, but appears to contradict another big message he used in the campaign’s trajectory.
“When I win, I’ll immediately lower the price and start on the first day,” Trump said in August.
The theme has changed over the last few weeks as influence is likely to affect the costs of most consumer goods. The administration now says its tariff-focused economic policy leads to “short-term pain” for consumers, but it is all part of a bigger plan to guide what Trump calls “American golden age.”
It’s a message reflected by Trump’s most stubborn Congressional allies, even those worried about the economic and political blow.
“In business, you have to have short-term pain to get long-term profits. I don’t think it’s going to be long, even if it’s completely short-term,” Senator R-Okla said.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) confirmed to reporters that the Trump administration may have to “realign” if the original tariff plans turned out to be negative for the domestic economy.
“If they make things better, they should want more. If that makes things worse, they should want to readjust,” he said. “If tariffs are going to hurt America, I think we’ll see President Trump get recalibrated.”
For Republicans in Congress, it became a delicate balance act. They are trying to keep them from criticizing Trump, turning to the midterm of 2026 and taking into account recent polls that have found tariff plans to be increasingly unpopular.
A CBS/YouGov poll released this week found that 55% of respondents feel Trump is too focused on tariffs, while 64% believe he is not focused sufficiently on price cuts. A Fox News poll released last month found similar sentiments, with 53% of registered voters saying tariffs “harm the economy.”
Even before Wednesday’s announcement, voters are increasingly questioning Trump’s economic agenda. Last month, an NBC news survey found Trump was underwater in the economy for the first time in one of the presidential administrations.
Democrats, meanwhile, have denounced Trump and his White House as officials say Americans are just trusting Trump’s instincts about trade as the market is in a hurry.
“It’s insane for me to see stock markets plummet, economists fall into a recession, 900 workers have been fired from Stellarantis, Indiana, and the Trump White House is ringing the alarm that they call this “liberation day.”
Despite the vote count, most Republicans maintain their faith in Trump’s trade agenda. They include Sen. Jim Justice, RW. Va.
“You have to grow,” Justice said. “And that’s what we believe our president is trying to do. I mean, we’re not making anything. We have to grow.”
“Let’s play,” he added. “Let’s see what happens in the next seven days, especially. There will be a lot of activity over the next seven days.