Donald Trump seems to now be in full retreat on his trade war. Which is good news, since American consumers are the ones who would have paid the price for it all. The strategy for other countries to follow is becoming clear now -- just wait Trump out, and eventually he will cave on his own, due to political and economic pressures increasing on him over time.

This strategy worked wonders for China, as last weekend Trump dropped his tariff levels against the country by a whopping 115 percentage points. This was precisely what China had been demanding he do before any trade negotiations could even begin. All they had to do was wait.

Trump didn't get any real concessions at all. There was no "deal," there was just a return to pretty much what the status quo was before Trump went bonkers with the tariffs. Calling it a "reset" is fair, but in no way was it a new trade deal. And again, all China had to do to get what they wanted was wait. Now the real talks can begin -- with China obviously in a position of strength.

Larry Summers summed it up best: "We had said that we were determined to impose these policies for an indefinite period. China didn't make any consequential or significant change in its policies.... Look, sometimes it's good to blink when you make a mistake, it's usually best to correct it and retreat, even if it's a little bit embarrassing."

Even the Wall Street Journal -- which is about as economically-conservative a media voice as you can get -- called it for what it is: "more surrender than Trump victory." They pointed out that the markets had forced Trump "to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new 'golden age.' The age didn't last two months, and it was more leaden that golden."

Here's how they began their editorial:

Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs -- and by Mr. Trump's own hand. Witness the agreement Monday morning to scale back his punitive tariffs on China -- his second major retreat in less than a week. This is a win for economic reality, and for American prosperity.

The Chinese were quick to claim victory, which is unsurprising.

Today, Trump announced he is apparently going to take another giant step backwards as well:

President Donald Trump on Friday said the U.S. would begin unilaterally informing many of its trading partners of new tariff rates, acknowledging for the first time that his administration will be unable to negotiate deals to lower tariffs with more than 50 trading partners by a self-imposed early July deadline.

. . .

But in remarks at a business roundtable in the United Arab Emirates, the final stop on a multi-day Middle East trip, Trump said that while "150 countries" were seeking to make deals with the U.S., it was "not possible to meet the number of people that want to see us."

Instead, Trump said U.S. trading partners should expect individual letters from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick "at a certain point over the next two to three weeks," in which they would be "telling people what they will be paying to do business in the United States."

Got that? All those deals Trump keeps bragging are imminent aren't actually going to be announced. At times, he claimed he had negotiated more deals than there are countries on the planet Earth, so it's not surprising that he turned out to be lying about the whole thing. It seems a whole bunch of countries decided to follow China's strategy of just waiting Trump out -- that's really the only conclusion that can be drawn. To date, Trump has only announced one deal (with Britain), and it kept the baseline 10 percent tariff intact. This signalled to everyone else that the 10 percent was not negotiable, which probably contributed to their reluctance to try to avoid it through some new deal.

Trump always thought that a trade war would be a fun game to play because (as he saw it) the only people who would pay for it would be foreign governments. This is not actually how tariffs work, of course. The economic pain isn't magically confined to foreign governments at all. And when reality intruded on Trump's little game, he was forced to back off because the economic pain wasn't just hitting here at home, it was hitting Trump supporters here at home:

Throughout April, President Donald Trump's sky-high tariffs on imports from China had rippled through the U.S. and global economies. But the president was reluctant to move too quickly to lower the penalties on Beijing, believing that the United States needed to stomach some short-term economic pain to achieve a major rebalancing in trade and that China had more to lose in the standoff.

By the end of the month, though, a growing number of blue-collar workers whom Trump saw as part of his political base -- including longshoremen and truckers -- began warning that tariffs and a near-total cessation of trade with China were hurting them. Behind the scenes, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other aides told Trump that his own voters were in danger if the tariffs did not come down, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. That gave them a path to initiating negotiations with the Chinese, which culminated this past weekend in Geneva with a partial deal to reduce tariffs between the world's two biggest economies. One White House official cautioned, however, that multiple factors contributed to the trade talks in Switzerland.

"The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump's supporters -- Trump's people," one person briefed on the talks said. "It gave Susie a key window."

It wasn't just dock workers and truckers who approved of Trump retreating -- the stock market also approved. Inflation hasn't so far been greatly affected by all the chaos, but then again the ripple effects are only starting to reach consumers' wallets. Car prices are going up. Walmart announced it's going to have to raise prices soon. The travel industry is preparing to take a $12.5 billion hit this year, as more and more international travellers decide that maybe they'll vacation someplace else this year. And let's check in on how Trump's "drill, baby, drill" agenda is working out, shall we?

President Donald Trump promised to unleash an energy renaissance that would lock in U.S. dominance over oil and gas. But that is not how things are working out for America's drillers, fracking firms and equipment suppliers, including the company founded by Trump's own energy secretary.

The market value of Liberty Energy has fallen by nearly half since its former CEO, Chris Wright, joined Trump's Cabinet. The company reports it is among many in the industry struggling with the challenges heightened by Trump's agenda, including "tariff impacts, geopolitical tensions, and oil supply concerns."

. . .

Companies are opting not to add new wells out of fear they will lose money. The number of active rigs in Texas is lower now than it has been since the nation was climbing out of the pandemic. The president's tariffs are meanwhile driving up costs in U.S. oil fields, leaving firms hesitant to invest in expanding production.

So they've gone from "drill, baby, drill," to "chill, baby, chill."

In other bad economic news for Trump, American consumer sentiment continues to bottom out:

Americans are feeling even worse about the economy than they did a month ago, with a closely watched gauge of consumer sentiment hitting the second-lowest level on record.

Fresh data from the University of Michigan showed sentiment ticked down slightly in May compared to April, as President Donald Trump's trade war threatened to raise prices on a range of goods. The survey also showed that people were more uncertain about the general state of the economy and their personal finances. Sentiment is now down almost 30 percent since the start of the year, right before Trump took office.

Trump's polling reflects this. On the economy, Trump is now down an average of 13 points. On inflation, an average of only 38.4 percent of Americans approve, while 59.4 disapprove -- a gap of 21 points.

Trump had been hoping that Congress would pass his "Big Beautiful Bill" on the budget by now, but today it failed in a House committee, as various Republican factions rebelled against the bill's draft (for various reasons). Five Republicans on the committee voted "No" with the Democrats, which tanked the bill. They're going to try to tweak it and vote again Sunday night, but this doesn't exactly bode well for its chances, even to just pass the House. And the Republican Senate is reportedly going to make some major changes to it whenever the House does manage to get it across the finish line as well.

So far, the bill appears to be a "Robin Hood in reverse" bill, which is not too surprising from Republicans. It will give massive tax breaks to the very wealthy while not closing any loopholes or adding any additional taxes on multimillionaires, and it will partially pay for all this largesse by shredding the safety net for the poorest workers. Par for the GOP course, in other words. Here's an overview (emphasis in original):

It's never a great time to purge millions of Americans from critical safety-net services. But if we are indeed barreling toward recession, as many economists predict, now is an especially bad time.

It would mean more Americans are denied medical and food assistance precisely when they need it most -- and that any coming downturn could be particularly vicious and long.

Republicans desperately want to cut taxes, with the largest benefits going to higher-income households and businesses. This will be expensive, adding $5 trillion to deficits, the Joint Committee on Taxation projects. GOP lawmakers plan to (partly) pay for this cost by slashing the social safety net. Medicaid and food stamps in particular would absorb enormous cuts.

This combination -- top-heavy tax cuts financed by low-income benefit cuts -- would add up to possibly the largest single transfer of wealth from poor to rich in U.S. history, according to back-of-the-envelope numbers from Bobby Kogan, a former Senate budget staffer and researcher at the Center for American Progress.

Republicans want to gut Medicaid, which would mean that 8.6 million people will lose their healthcare safety net. This number goes up to 13.7 million when all the other things in the bill are accounted for as well.

The tax cuts included in the bill will be cancelled out for those at the bottom of the income scale, which will actually result in them losing money on the deal. Cutting Medicaid and food stamps is going to hurt:

The Republican tax plan may offer only modest gains to everyday workers, according to a wide range of tax experts, and some taxpayers may actually be left in worse financial shape if the bill becomes law.

The latest assessment arrived Friday from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, a nonpartisan scorekeeper closely watched on Capitol Hill. Economists found that many Americans who make less than $51,000 a year would see their after-tax income fall as a result of the Republican proposal beginning in 2026.

. . .

People making between about $51,000 and $17,000 could lose about $700 on average in after-tax income beginning in 2026, according to the analysis, when factoring in both wages and federal aid. That reduction would worsen over the next eight years. People reporting less than $17,000 in income would see a reduction closer to $1,000, on average, also increasing over time, a shortfall that underscores their reliance on federal benefits.

By contrast, the top 0.1 percent, including those with incomes over $4.3 million, would gain on average more than $389,000 in after-tax income in 2026, the data show. These earners benefit more from a Republican measure because it cuts taxes on the wealthy and makes other favorable changes, including for businesses, which may improve the value of their investments.

The bill is designed to hand out goodies now, while Trump is still in office, and to delay all the pain until right after he leaves office (when a lot of the goodies, like tax-free tip income) will disappear. And it will add a huge pile of money (measured in the trillions of dollars) to the national debt, of course.

In other news, federal judges keep right on smacking Trump down in court. A California judge just put a two-week pause on Trump's mass layoffs of federal workers. A different judge released a Georgetown researcher who had been locked up for expressing his political opinion. Meanwhile, Stephen Miller is out there floating the idea that Trump could just suspend habeas corpus rights, on the pretext that America was somehow at war or being invaded. So far, this hasn't happened, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on.

And finally, we leave you all with something to look forward to. This June 14th is Flag Day. It is also the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. And it's Donald Trump's 79th birthday. Trump has decided that he's going to hold a grand military parade on the day -- costing taxpayers an estimated $45 million, no less -- to celebrate. But not everyone will be there to wish the Dear Leader a happy birthday, it seems:

"The National Protest Against Trump and the War Machine plans to mobilize thousands from across the country to protest the military parade," according a permit application filed with the National Park Service last week. The Army's celebration coincides with the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump, who has long mused about showcasing the might of America's armed forces on the streets of the capital.

"A military parade celebrating Trump and the Army is an outrageous insult to the American people," reads the permit application. "What really makes America great is its working people -- U.S.-born and immigrant alike -- not billionaires and the military that enforces their domination of the rest of the world."

Can't wait to see the split-screen of the protest and the parade, personally! Anyone in the D.C. area with nothing better to do on the 14th of next month should head on down to have your voices heard.

We're going to highlight two bright spots out there in the Democratic landscape this week, because we always like to encourage up-and-comers who do a good job in red states.

The first is a Democrat running to take on Republican Senator Joni Ernst in Iowa with a very pointed message:

As Democrats try to figure out what to say -- and who should say it -- to win back the trust of voters, Nathan Sage is saying it with uncommon fight in his voice. And he's doing it in Iowa, a place where Democrats hope to defy gravity in next year's midterm elections.

Sage is the executive director of the chamber of commerce in tiny Knoxville, about an hour from Des Moines. He's served in both the Marine Corps and the Army. He did three tours in Iraq. And on April 16, he became the first candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.

Sage's campaign video leans in on his working-class roots and his paycheck-to-paycheck present. He slams Ernst as a "corporate Republican" who has forsaken Iowans to do the bidding of billionaires. But what stands out is a tone we're used to hearing from the mad-at-everything world of MAGA.

"There's a war at home and we're losing. Unions under attack. Farmers f---ed over.... The economy is rigged, and those in power don't give a damn. They're the ones doing it," Sage says in the video. "Only 2 percent of Congress come from the working class. We built the damn table. It's time we had a seat at it." He ends his pitch saying, "I'm going to kick corporate Republican Joni Ernst's a-- next November."

That campaign video is definitely worth watching. We have no idea how vulnerable Ernst actually is, but she can't complain about the crudeness of the ad, since she initially ran for office with an ad bragging about her pig castration skills. Iowa politics can indeed get pretty down-and-dirty.

What is most notable about the ad, however, is Sage's authenticity. He is running as a working-class outsider, which is a good tactic for Democrats in general right now. Just for that ad alone, we have to hand Sage a Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, and we certainly wish him the best in his campaign.

Our second MIDOTW winner this week wasn't just for a campaign but an upset victory, in another very red state:

John Ewing Jr. was elected Omaha's first Black mayor on Tuesday, defeating the city's three-term Republican mayor, Jean Stothert, in a race where Democrats sought to tie her to President Donald Trump's unpopular agenda -- another warning sign for Republicans in a critical battleground area.

Omaha and its suburbs have played a unique role in national politics, as the "blue dot" in a conservative state that wields an unusual amount of power in presidential contests. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city limits of Omaha, Stothert kept her seat over three terms by building a broad-based coalition that included the city's many independent voters. But Ewing's campaign and Democrats sought to tie her to economic uncertainty and anger about Trump, whom she backed in 2024.

Ewing proved that even in red states, a Democrat can still pull off a victory if they run a good campaign. Which is reason enough to hand him his own Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Knoxville, Iowa's Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Nathan Sage via his current official contact page (since we, as a rule, do not provide links to campaign webpages), and Omaha Mayor-Elect John Ewing Jr. via the Douglas County Treasurer's official contact page (for the same reason, it is the job Ewing currently holds), to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

We were set to give this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to Representative Shri Thanedar, for grandstanding in the House by forcing a vote on his articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. But then he was convinced to pull his resolution, after pressure from his fellow House Democrats:

"After talking with many colleagues, I have decided not to force a vote on impeachment today," [Representative Shri] Thanedar confirmed in a text message. "Instead, I will add to my articles of impeachment and continue to rally the support of both Democrats and Republicans to defend the Constitution with me."

Democrats privately fumed this week after Thanedar pressed forward with his impeachment effort at a moment where they are seeking to put a spotlight on Republicans' potential cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs as the GOP moves closer to a floor vote on its massive tax-cut bill.

Although many Democrats believe that Trump has committed impeachable offenses -- many voted to impeach him twice during his first term -- they saw Thanedar's measure as a sideshow during a crucial week on Capitol Hill.

We fully agree with that last paragraph. Yes, Trump is committing impeachable offenses on a weekly basis. Yes, he certainly does deserve being removed from office. But it's a pipe dream -- there is no way that the House would vote for it (even if all his fellow Democrats voted with him, which was in no way guaranteed), and even if that miracle happened, there is no way the Republican Senate would convict him. The whole thing was, indeed, a sideshow. Thanedar has a much-younger primary challenger for his seat and is trying to appear bold in fighting back against Trump, but it's all performative. So we were glad to hear he decided not to hold the vote on his impeachment resolution.

Instead, we'll give the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week to the Democratic National Committee, who are in the process of trying to oust David Hogg from his role as vice-chairman, since Hogg is moving forward with plans to endorse primary challenges to other Democrats deemed too old or with not enough fight in them.

A Democratic National Committee panel found that David Hogg and another vice chair were not properly elected this year, setting off a process that could lead to Hogg's ouster amid backlash to his plans to support primary challengers to House Democrats.

The Credentials Committee's recommendation will get a vote from the full DNC membership. If approved, the two vice chair elections will be invalidated, and new elections will be held as soon as practicable. The new elections will be limited to the same five candidates who were eligible at the February vote.

. . .

"While this vote was based on how the DNC conducted its officers' elections, which I had nothing to do with, it is also impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote," Hogg said in a statement after the committee's recommendation. "I ran to be DNC Vice Chair to help make the Democratic Party better, not to defend an indefensible status quo that has caused voters in almost every demographic group to move away from us. The DNC has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort."

In his statement, Hogg noted that other party committees are regularly involved in primaries and that past DNC vice chairs have endorsed candidates in primaries without issue.

For those of us out here who also think the Democratic Party could stand to have some deadwood removed from its ranks, it is disappointing indeed to see how hard the party establishment is pushing back against such efforts. Hogg is right -- getting fresher candidates would likely help with the problem of demographics (especially among young voters).

So we have a sort of blanket Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week for all the members of the Democratic National Committee who are behind the efforts to oust Hogg at a moment when what he's trying to accomplish could actually help.

[Contact the Democratic National Committee on their official contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]

Volume 796 (5/16/25)

Another mixed bag this week. We didn't even include the whole "let's bribe Trump with a plane" thing in the weekly round-up, because there were other more relevant things to review, but it certainly is worth a few choice talking points from Democrats, that's for sure.

   Retreat!

Thankfully...

"Donald Trump finally figured out his trade war wasn't working out as planned and was beginning to hit American workers, businesses, and consumers hard. So he blinked. Instead of dictating terms to China as he had planned, he had to instead give them everything they were asking for just to get them to the table. And now it looks like no other 'deals' will be announced with other countries in the world -- we're just going to set a tariff rate without any deals in place at all. Another retreat! But I for one am thankful that Trump is finally beginning to realize that the entire trade war idea was just a fancy way of shooting America in the foot. Trump still has a ways more to retreat before we get the economy back to some sort of normal, but at least he retreated on the most idiotic of his tariffs with China (for now)."

   Prices are still going up

Everyone already knows this (from seeing it at the checkout stand) but Democrats should remind them of it every chance they get.

"Donald Trump got elected promising to bring prices down on everything. But you know what? Prices are still going up. They're going up because Trump has no idea what he's doing with the world's economy and the American consumer is going to bear all the pain involved. Trump can lie about it all he wants, but that just goes to show how out-of-touch he is. Gas prices are not magically down below two dollars a gallon, they are actually up a dime since he took office. Food prices are up. Cars are more expensive. Even Walmart is announcing price hikes. Everywhere you look, you can see that Trump was lying about being able to wave some magic wand and bring prices down. And everything he's done with his trade war nonsense has just made things worse."

   De plane! De plane!

As Hervé Villechaize used to put it...

"Just when you think Donald Trump can't get any sleazier, he manages to do so beyond a shadow of a doubt. His announcement that he will be accepting a bribe in the form of a 747 from Qatar was historic in scope, since no U.S. president has ever even considered taking such a jaw-dropping bribe right out in plain (plane?) sight. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that it would be legal to do so in her opinion, which isn't too surprising considering she used to be a lobbyist for Qatar. But anyone who can read the plain (plane?) English of the United States Constitution knows that this is horrendously ethically wrong. It's so bad even some Republicans are having problems with it! Plus, it sends a very third-world signal to the rest of the planet: not only can our president be easily bribed, but he'll even take a secondhand, hand-me-down aircraft from some wealthy country rather than getting a brand-new one."

   Just for one second...

It's worth pointing this one out, once again.

"I'd like to ask each and every Republican who is out there tying themselves into knots trying to explain why an American president should be able to accept gigantic bribes two very simple questions. First: would you have been just as OK with Barack Obama accepting a huge flying palace from Kenya? Second: would you have been fine with Joe Biden accepting a giant plane from Ukraine that he could keep after he left office? If any one of them answers 'Yes' to either of those -- rather than admit that their heads would have exploded if either Obama or Biden had attempted to do such a thing -- then I will call them a liar right to their faces. The double standard is pretty blatant, don't you think?"

   Free? Hardly.

Also worth pointing out.

"Trump keeps saying that the bribe is wonderful because he's getting a $400 million plane 'for free.' But that's not actually true, is it? Getting that plane up to the standards required for Air Force One would involve basically taking it apart down to the skeleton and then rebuilding it with security measures and secure communications gear and all the rest of the things an American president requires when flying in an airplane. Which would cost hundreds of millions of dollars -- some estimates put it over a billion, in fact. So how exactly is that a 'free' plane? It would take so long to retrofit that Trump would barely even get the chance to use it before he left office as well. Doesn't sound like such a good deal when you consider everything, does it? And certainly not a 'free' one, that's for sure."

   What could possibly go wrong? [Part 1]

No surprise, really.

"Donald Trump, in his first 100-plus days in office, has only sat for an intelligence briefing a total of 12 times. I guess he was too busy playing golf, or something. It's no wonder he answers: 'I didn't know about that' so often, when asked by reporters on all sorts of subjects. It's because he doesn't know -- because he doesn't have time to sit down and listen. You know, for a guy who ran on how out-of-touch Joe Biden was, it's rather unnerving to see how little Trump is interested in the nation's security. Getting briefings every week or two is just not good enough. If a crisis develops, Trump will be forced to pay attention, but until that happens he's just not that interested, it seems. What could possibly go wrong with that?"

   What could possibly go wrong? [Part 2]

Weather has no political ideology, it's worth remembering.

"Donald Trump is busily gutting NOAA and the National Weather Service, because he doesn't like pointy-headed scientists who contradict his fantasy world (where climate change does not exist). So Trump is firing them all. One-fourth of the National Weather Service's local forecast offices now lacks a chief meteorologist. Trump is also gutting disaster-preparedness programs for the states, and wants to complete eliminate FEMA. So America will have less information about the weather and few resources to recover from any natural disasters that come along. Just something to think about, folks, right before hurricane season starts. Because what could possibly go wrong with this plan, right?"

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground