NY Times: Trump "Unsettles The Settled"

Donald Trump

The New York Times, in reporting on Donald Trump's 'last minute' escape from implementing tariffs on Mexico, notes the pattern Donald Trump seems to have in his negotiations that end up with - who else? - him looking like a hero for a mess he created in the first place.

These are often dramas of his own making, with him naturally the hero. He stakes out maximalist positions and issues brutal ultimatums to compel action, arguing that extreme problems demand extreme tactics. At times, though, it can seem like little more than smoke and mirrors substituting for serious policymaking, a way of pretending to make progress without actually solving the underlying problem.

“This is a pattern we’ve seen since the first days of this administration,” said Ned Price, a former C.I.A. official who worked on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council staff and is now director of policy at National Security Action, a progressive foreign policy advocacy organization.

“The president manufactures a crisis, galvanizes his base around the challenge, leaves the definition of success undefined, pretends to play hardball and, lo and behold, finds a solution that entails little more than window-dressing, if that,” Mr. Price said. “For Trump, it’s a win-win.” But “the loser tends to be the American people, oftentimes Trump’s base first and foremost,” he added.

As I, and many other people smarter than me, noted already, the 'deal' Trump announced with Mexico is actually a collection of prior agreements with our southern neighbor assembled to look like a wholly new agreement.

It's not.