President Donald Trump’s insane self-immolation tariff regime that he announced on April 2 at least temporarily met its waterloo when he paused levies on many countries for 90 days on Wednesday. This is unsurprising, given that it was perhaps the first time in world history a democratically-elected leader has intentionally sabotaged his own country’s economy and power. Trump may have bullied simpering billionaires, greedy law firms, cynical universities, and delusional Republicans into total subservience, but he can’t pull the same trick on global investors who owe him nothing. And it was ultimately quite predictable that a combination of market mayhem blowing his approval numbers apart and pressure from his once-compliant quislings in Congress forced him to retreat.
The political scaffolding was already collapsing under the weight of this completely bonkers assault on American prosperity, one that virtually no one voted or asked for. In the Senate, seven Republicans have already signed on to a bill imposing a kind of War Powers Act on the president’s tariff powers, requiring congressional approval within 60 days of their imposition. On Tuesday, Axios reported that as many as a dozen Republicans in the House are considering joining their Senate colleagues to claw back tariff power from an unhinged White House.
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This kind of defiance would have been unthinkable in the weeks following Trump’s inauguration, when Senate Republicans rubber-stamped the nightmare people currently occupying key posts in the American federal government. And while they aren’t yet anywhere near the numbers they would need to override a presidential veto of any tariff power reclamation effort, they may very well get there sooner rather than later—even after yesterday’s partial climb-down—as pressure builds from constituent anger over investment and job losses, price increases, and possibly even the complete unravelling of America’s position atop the global economy.
Very few Republicans actually support what the president is doing to begin with and are only going along with it out of fear. Trump’s power over those elected Republicans is derived mostly from his ability to threaten hostile primary challengers in 2026 and beyond, as well as an ambient background fear that he or his far-right allies will target individual members and their families with harassment or worse.
The unstated assumption, though, is that Trump will continue to enjoy blind fealty from the GOP base. That was plausible enough in the months following his political resurrection in the 2024 election when he led the party to an unexpected governing trifecta, but it will become increasingly untenable the longer the president is inflicting intentional economic harm on the country. A significant number of Republicans will look at polls and conclude that it might be better for their legacies, as well as their futures in the post-congressional griftopia of lobbying and influence peddling, if they stand on principle and go down fighting in a primary rather than losing a general election in disgrace. Prolonged economic suffering might even cut into the cult-like obeisance of his most committed supporters.
The failure thus far of President Trump to impose his mercantilist vision on the rest of the world therefore points to another significant, unheralded weakness of the second Trumpening. At home, his hand-picked Supreme Court is largely deferring to his authoritarian madness, either to avoid an inter-branch confrontation or because they prefer authoritarianism to constitutional democracy. The capitulation of business, education, and legal elites is a sign that they believe Trump will be able to run roughshod over the rule of law for the foreseeable future, at least until the midterms provide a political correction and empower the Democratic opposition
But leaders of the countries targeted with an inane tariff formula seemingly designed by an AI chatbot are burning with rage and resentment against Trump’s unprovoked destruction of the global trading system. Rather than buckling under the weight of Trump’s threats, China has already retaliated in kind, and the country’s authoritarian rulers can bear enormous economic pain before worrying about losing their hold on power. Canada, where Trump has single-handedly resurrected the political fortunes of the once-doomed Liberals, has done the same, as a rally-around-the-flag effect will provide at least a short-term political backstop for defiance.
Besieged at home by a collapsing economy and overseas by countries refusing to capitulate to extortion and humiliation, Trump chose to unwind some of his capricious tariffs. But given that escalatory tariffs on China remain in place, as well as levies on some of our closest trading partners, it is not at all clear that yesterday’s announcement is going to return markets and the economy to the status quo ante. Either way, he has dealt a potentially fatal blow to his own mythology and power while achieving absolutely nothing of substance for the American people other than perhaps reminding them of why they should be more careful when choosing their leaders.
David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in Slate, The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
