So... What Is Trump’s Plan Here?
And more reader questions, answered.
Happy Sunday! Welcome to the weekly Wake Up To Politics mailbag. This week, here are the questions I’ll be answering:
What is President Trump’s strategy with these tariffs (and what does it tell us about when they might be lifted)?
Why are so many law firms making deals with Trump?
What are the key elections to watch for the rest of the year?
What are the odds that Trump doesn’t finish his term?
How hard would it be for Democrats to win enough Senate seats to remove him from office?
And more! Let’s get answering:
Q: What do you think President Trump’s endgame is with his slash and burn approach to governing?
Q: In your estimation, does Trump REALLY think his tariffs (which he might capriciously change whenever the mood suits him) will bring manufacturing jobs back to the US anytime before the 2026 midterms (or even the 2028 presidential election), or is this some chaos scheme to have other countries agree to other demands so that he’ll lower the tariffs?
These are two separate questions — one about Trump’s broader governing agenda and one specifically about his tariff strategy — but I’d like to take them together, and hopefully shed some light on both.
We don’t have a parliamentary system in the United States, but as I’ve written before, it can be helpful to think of American political parties with the mental frame of coalition governments. For example, answering a question about the Biden administration’s “endgame” would require taking into account the priorities of a bunch of different factions, all of whom were Scotch-taped together into a government.
Moderate Democrats wanted an infrastructure package. Elizabeth Warren alumni wanted strong antitrust enforcement. Labor allies wanted pro-union legislation. Progressives wanted a climate bill. And so on. The “endgame” was as varied as the players themselves.
Similarly, the Trump administration “endgame” depends on which coalition member you’re referring to. Marco Rubio wants to compete with China. Tulsi Gabbard wants to advance isolationism. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to “make America healthy again.” Elon Musk wants to slash the deficit. Scott Bessent wants to lower taxes. Some of these goals are in conflict with each other, sure. But no one ever said running a coalition was easy.
Then, of course, you have to consider the personal priorities of the president. For Biden, that seemed to largely be foreign policy (his chief of staff reportedly wondered whether he “thought he was president of NATO”), reviving bipartisanship, and keeping Donald Trump out of office. For Trump, it seems to be restricting immigration, exacting personal revenge on his opponents, and — you guessed it — tariffs.
Which brings us to the $6 trillion question: what is Trump’s endgame with respect to tariffs? As far as I can tell, he has outlined at least three potential rationales: