Cult of personality
By 
Trump’s behavior is rapidly devolving into a series of random impulsive gestures, more redolent of a gathering narcissistic dementia than any kind of strategy or plan. Tariffs are on one day and then off the next, based on nothing more than whatever whim strikes him, whatever flattery has gotten into his ear today, and no doubt whatever emoluments have found their way into his accounts.
As for next week or for that matter tomorrow, who knows what will happen? Certainly not the tycoons who so stupidly believed that, in the words of Mark Zuckerberg — or was it Hyman Roth? –this kind of government knows how to help business:
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.
About half of goods coming into the U.S. from Mexico would fall under the exemption and around 38% of goods from Canada would qualify, said a senior administration official. That includes potash, which is used in fertilizers.
But some Canadian energy products won’t qualify and will be subjected to a 10% tariff. And all other goods, including computers from Mexico, will be subjected to the 25% tariff, the senior administration official said.
“I did this as an accommodation, and out of respect for, President Sheinbaum,” Trump wrote in a post on the social media website Truth Social earlier Thursday. “Our relationship has been a very good one, and we are working hard, together, on the Border, both in terms of stopping Illegal Aliens from entering the United States and, likewise, stopping Fentanyl. Thank you to President Sheinbaum for your hard work and cooperation!”
And because it is now quite literally nothing more than a classic political cult, everyone in the GOP has to treat every absurd reversal and swerve as just today’s masterstroke of genius by the omniscient and infallible Leader, as opposed to the madness at least some of them can still recognize it actually represents.