When politicians claim, or officials claim on their behalf, that they have been “absolutely clear,” they are usually muddying the waters. Sometimes this is intended to obscure future ambiguity, but most often it is an effort to dismiss the very idea that previous statements or actions might have been confusing.
Former President Barack Obama notoriously deployed “let me be clear,” especially when repeating his falsehood that people could keep their doctors under his healthcare reforms. When he said the stock phrase, he was poo-pooing legitimate fears in the hope of concealing his duplicity and making people question their own misgivings.
President Donald Trump’s administration is doing a lot of clarification at the moment. White House spokesman Kush Desai on April 23 said, “President Trump has been clear: China needs to make a deal with the United States of America. When decisions on tariffs are made, they will come directly from the president. Anything else is just pure speculation.”
That last bit is part of the problem. Foreign trade negotiators can only speculate about what Trump wants because what he wants apparently changes from one moment to the next. Counterparts are unsure that U.S. officials even have the authority to make deals.
We’re long past the possibility that Trump is playing 4-D chess or simply being flexible. He seems to be making it up as he goes along. There are acres of space for speculation because the president has been anything but clear about imports from China or anywhere else.
Tariffs have been presented simultaneously as a bargaining chip and a permanent source of revenue, which are mutually exclusive. They’ve been diluted and withdrawn by exemptions for some countries, by pauses for all countries except China, and by carve-outs for some types of goods. They’ve also been raised to 145%, then hinted at being adjustable to half that or less.
Confused? Well, there is more confusion to come, for tariff policy will change again as night follows day. The only thing emerging from the mist is that Trump does not know what his own policy is but is too stubborn and thin-skinned to admit that his fondness for tariffs is folly — a folly he says makes financial markets “yippy,” which is a way of suggesting weak and unnecessary nervousness where there is profound and justified horror.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been out doing some clarifying, too, saying, “America first does not mean America alone.” He wouldn’t say this if the administration hadn’t given the opposite impression. You can tell what many people think U.S. tariff policy means by listening to what Bessent says it isn’t: “To the contrary, it is a call for deeper collaboration and mutual respect among trade partners.”
China has lied, cheated, and stolen its way to the status of economic superpower, and U.S. policy needs to end some 30-plus years of appeasement. To this extent, Trump is right. But mutual respect is the last thing most people hear when listening to him speak.
TRUMP’S LEFTIST THINKING ON TARIFFS
His administration’s policies are a mix of good and bad, but his messaging has been a fiasco, partly because the bad policies, tariffs foremost among them, utterly lack coherence.
No amount of let-me-be-clearing can make them look sensible, consistent, or workable.