you are all over the place
No I'm not, because you are reacting without reading.
One. Trump put tariffs on not because of fentynal, or to bring manufacturing back. He put tariffs on to pay for his tax cuts. That's it.
Two. He was betting on DOGE to find 100's of billions, and it's a failure.
Three. He can't cut the military, and in fact increased it by 100 billion+ to get the war hawks vote and appease those donors.
Four. He thought he could get the politicians to cut Medicaid, means test Social Security and Medicare. But the MAGA base relies on it and have clearly said now that won't happen.
Five. The Freedom Caucus deficit hawks in the house and senate will not pass the bill without reciprocal cuts to the budget to pay for it. Or increased revenue to offset it.
So the only means of increasing revenue to pay for the bill is tariffs. He is hoping a blanket 10%, 30% on China will add up to enough to appease Congress and get the votes. So they will not come off until he gets the bill passed in September. It's a game of chicken. He is hoping to stave off pressure from business until then.
He will at that point, if he gets the bill passed, then suddenly be able to drop tariffs on major trade partners. In our case a slightly modified USMCA so he can crow about things. With no real difference.
But pressure is mounting from business, Wall St. And his own base which includes lots of people being laid off, with small businesses hurting. Now add in all the other domestic issues he has with a massive real estate bubble, tourism collapse, drug problems, recession, growing social unrest and its an easy waiting game imo.
The question is whether he can see it through, produce the tariff revenue in the face of both businesses and consumers not buying things(no orders mean no tariffs) and deal with a growing pushback from Congress. They can be Mavericks. Remember McCain in 2017?
There are several of those now.
So we wait six months. Watch as he extends auto tariffs carve outs. Watch as our grassroots domestic boycott affects sales. Watch as energy tariffs hit both business and consumers. Watch as non replaceable raw materials cost them more.
And dont panic. That is my read. So no matter what we can't convince him. He has to do it himself for his own reasons. And it will come from within.