UPDATE (March 6, 2025, 4:46 p.m. ET): This post has been revised to reflect the fact that the latest White House “pause” applies to both Mexico and Canada.
About a month ago, Donald Trump said he was moving forward with sweeping new trade tariffs against the United States’ three largest trading partners. Asked if there was any chance his foreign targets could convince him to delay the policy, the president replied, “No, no.”
A few days later, Trump said he’d made some last-minute deals, allowing him to back down from his threats. Calling them “deals,” however, was overly generous: Officials in Canada and Mexico told the White House they would keep doing what they’d already done
We were left with a rather obvious conclusion: Trump picked a fight for reasons he struggled to explain; he faced pressure; he saw stock market declines; and he caved in exchange for effectively nothing. A new round of international headlines about the Republican being a “paper tiger” soon followed.
A month later, the president took a walk down a similar path, again announcing tariffs on our largest trading partners and again saying nothing could change his mind. Why? Because of fentanyl. Or maybe immigration. Or perhaps the trade deficit. Trump has changed his own rationale several times, and none of the explanations make sense.
Nevertheless, the administration is moving forward with its radical and potentially destabilizing plan — or at least was. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued exemptions on tariffs for a wide range of goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada, two days after putting in place sweeping 25% tariffs that rattled stock markets, as businesses warned the move would increase prices for consumers. The exemption would apply to goods compliant with the North American free trade agreement reached during Trump’s first term and will last until April 2, when Trump plans another round of retaliatory tariffs on goods from a range of countries.
The developments came one day after the Republican announced his policy also wouldn’t apply to the auto industry — because the largest U.S. auto manufacturers asked him for a reprieve.
Industries that lack direct access to the White House were, evidently, out of luck, though Politico reported that administration officials were weighing additional exceptions for the agriculture industry.
By any fair measure, this entire policy — I’m using the word loosely — is utterly incoherent. Worse, it’s a moving target that seems to change by the day, creating new layers of chaos and uncertainty and leaving whole industries with a sense of whiplash.
What’s more, there’s no actual governing taking place. Only an erratic president doling out favors to some of the people who manage to get him on the phone.
No one seems able to say what the policy is, what the policy will be, why Trump is doing this or what he hopes to achieve. Other than that, though, it’s a great plan.
Revisiting our earlier related coverage, imagine being an American executive at a company that relies on imports and exports. As part of your day-to-day responsibilities, you have to make decisions about product purchases, shipping, staffing and investments that will shape your business’ future.
Then imagine you’re watching your own country’s White House make threats, impose costly trade tariffs and then waver about the implementation of the president’s own agenda — for an indeterminate length of time.
Could you do your job effectively? Could anyone in your industry do their jobs effectively?
A striking number of American business leaders are making their displeasure with Trump known. It shouldn’t surprise anyone when their ranks continue to grow.
