President Donald Trump officially fulfilled a campaign promise to unleash radical tariffs, a movement that has caused fears of a global commercial war and caused an important question about what has become the centerpiece of its economic agenda: what is its game ending?
Both in size and scope, Trump’s last plan for global tariffs, a 10% reference rate for practically all countries, with a greater number of countries with which the United States has higher commercial deficits, was more than what most expected. He has let the global financial markets fall and Trump’s republican supporters trying to thread the political needle of not criticizing it, while including the economic danger that the rate plan can mark the beginning of 2026 half -period elections in which the Republican party will try to defend its thin house and the majorities of the Senate.
The Trump team has so far had a clear message to explain the strategy behind tariffs that their political allies can echo or their thinking process behind the decision to go far beyond what even supporters expected.
In addition, the multiple elements of the sweeping measures caused the administration to rush through the process, including its decision to impose tariffs on the uninhabited islands and their rates numbers initially listed in the White House list published Thursday that they were different from those of the Trump table held in the Garden de Rosas on Wednesday.
A day after the announcement, Trump was not helping to provide anything about that clarity, publishing cryptic messages in social truth that the “patient lived”, an apparent reference to the economy of the United States, and that the “operation is over”, although tariffs have not yet been imposed.
“The operation is over! The patient lived and is healing,” Dow Jones lost more than 1,600 points. “The prognosis is that the patient will be much stronger, bigger, better and more resistant than ever.”
“Make the United States great again!” He added.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump doubled the analogy by defending his move to journalists who asked about the financial market tank one day after their tariff announcement.
“I think it’s going very well,” he said. “It was an operation like when a patient is operated.”
Trump at several points has framed the tariff plan as an income generator for the country, saying last week that tariffs would raise “billions of dollars, even billion dollars, reaching our country.” At the same time, however, he has discussed them in terms of “justice”, the idea that they could be used as a tool to re -pay the global economy, which, according to Trump, has been plagued that foreign nations take advantage of the United States.
Trump has long seen a commercial deficit as a “subsidy” that the United States provides another country. Economists have almost uniformly rejected that idea, noting that many countries are too small or too poor to buy enough American products to compensate for their exports.
The large size of the rate proposal and the lack of clear communication of the administration have left some skeptical and insecure Trump supporters of what will come later.
“I have no idea,” said a Trump supporter and a 2024 donor when he was asked what Trump’s ultimate goal was. “This is much bigger than I think most thoughts would happen during the campaign. I suppose the best case is that you receive some concessions from countries quickly and retire. I don’t know.”
A Senate assistant from the Republican Senate said that the White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller spoke on Thursday a lunch with the Senate personnel to address the concerns. This person said that Miller handled the difficult interrogation well and made strengths about the justification of national security behind the reformulation of critical supply chains, given the Covid crisis.
But this person said that the White House has not yet offered effective messages on other fronts related to high range tariffs.
“They have the broad and general issue of what they are trying to say with the reorientation of the economy,” said this person. “The difficult part of this is what you tell the small business that says that these rates are going to put me. And I have not yet heard a point of conversation convincing in that.”
Tariffs give the Republicans of Congress even more urgency to approve tax cuts to relieve some of the tariff pressures, said this person, who believes that Trump is “willing to make an agreement” in commercial measures.
“Donald Trump sees everything as a negotiation, right?” This person said. “That is his vision of the world. So I think this is a negotiation, and there will be countries that will come to the table one by one and reach an agreement to do business with the number 1 economy in the world.”
Since Wednesday’s announcement, Trump’s advisors have been sent to do interviews with the media to explain the plan. Sometimes, explanations have only worsened water.
The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told CNN on Thursday morning that Wall Street should “trust President Trump” and that no level of negotiation by other countries would reduce or eliminate the plan described before tariffs came into force.
“The president made clear yesterday that this is not a negotiation, this is a national emergency,” he said.
The White House conversation points obtained by NBC News also emphasized that tariffs were not a negotiation tool.
However, the message about “not a negotiation” has been contradicted by Trump’s own economic advisors, who insist that the measure is part of a negotiation ploy to recover what they call “fair trade”, as well as their own family and even Trump himself.
“Tariffs give us great power to negotiate. Always have,” Trump told reporters on Thursday about Air Force One.
Trump’s son, Eric published Thursday morning in X: “I would not want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a commercial agreement with @realdonaldtrump. The first to negotiate will win, the last will lose absolutely. I have seen this movie all my life …”
The Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, also told Fox News presenter, Sean Hannity, on Wednesday night, that tariffs would cause negotiations of foreign trade partners.
“I have to imagine that many of these countries will not like rates that come in force tonight at midnight, and that they will want to negotiate,” he said. “Do you think I’m wrong?”
Meanwhile, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, told Bloomberg News on Wednesday that it was not part of the tariff conversations within the administration and that I was not sure if negotiations with foreign countries occurred before the initial tariffs came into force on Saturday.
“I’m not part of the negotiations, so we’ll see,” he said. “I’m sure there will be many calls. I’m not sure there are negotiations.”
Although the announcement broadly fulfilled a Trump campaign promise to institute tariffs, it is also apparently in contradiction with another great message that it used in the campaign: that would reduce prices.
“When I win, I will reduce prices immediately, starting the first day,” Trump said in August.
This issue has been transformed in recent weeks, since it is likely that impact rates are seen in the cost of most consumer goods. The administration now says that its economic policy focused on the rate will lead to “short -term pain” for consumers, but that everything is part of a larger plan to mark what Trump has called the “golden age of America.”
It is the message echoing the most staunch Trump Congress allies, even those concerned with the economic and political setback.
“Sometimes, in business, you must have short-term pain to have long-term profits, and we do not believe that this is so long in the short term, if it is what it is,” said Senator Markwayne Mullin, R-OKLA.
Senator John Kennedy, a Republican of the, recognized journalists that the Trump administration could have to “emphasize” if the original tariff plans are negative for the national economy.
“If things improve, they should want more. If things worsen, they should want to emphasize,” he said. “If the tariffs end up damaging the United States, I think you will see that President Trump recalibrates.”
For members of the Republicans of Congress, it has become a delicate act of balance. They are trying not to criticize Trump while monitoring the intermediate works of 2026 and take into account recent surveys that have found that the rate plan is increasingly unpopular.
A CBS/Yougov survey published this week found that 55% of respondents He feels that Trump is focusing too much on tariffs, while 64% think they are not sufficiently focused on reducing prices. A Fox News survey published last month found a similar feeling, with 53% of registered voters who say that tariffs “harm the economy.”
Even before Wednesday’s announcement, voters have increasingly questioned Trump’s economic agenda. Last month, a NBC news survey found Trump under water in the economy for the first time in any of its presidential administrations.
Meanwhile, the Democrats criticized Trump and his White House as officials say that Americans simply need to trust Trump’s instincts in commerce as the market takes a fall.
“It is crazy for me that the stock market has collapsed, economists are playing the alarm that we will immerse in a recession, 900 workers were fired from Stellantis in Indiana and here in Michigan and that Trump’s White House Open Wednesday.
Despite the number of surveys, most Republicans keep the faith on Trump’s commercial agenda. They include Senator Jim Justice, RW.VA., who said he understands concerns, but trusts Trump to protect Western virginians.
“You have to grow,” Justice said. “And that is what I think our president is trying to do. I mean, we are not doing anything. We have to grow.”
“Let him play,” he added. “Let’s see what happens, especially in the next seven days. You will see a lot of activity in the next seven days, many different things.”
