"DON'T shoot the messenger." You’ve probably warned yourself on more than one occasion not to focus on the person bringing you news, but to focus on the message itself. As with most things, Donald Trump makes that hard to do.
There are people who would detest him still if he handed them a cheque for a million dollars. He talks like he’s having a disjointed conversation, maybe a monologue, his thoughts flip-flopping at a searing pace. When he spoke about countries lining up to “kiss my ass”, it wasn’t that they’re the grossest words you’ve ever heard (you may even have used them yourself on occasion). But to hear the words come from the mouth of the US President seemed so far from fitting, most of us recoiled in different levels of disgust.
Why does Trump come out with this kind of language? Because he knows that the wording of the message will make him sound like a regular guy. It probably is true that countries have approached Trump, post-his tariffs threat, to come to some sort of reasonable deal. But Trump, ever the sweet-natured leader, turned their legitimate concerns into mocking whines, while presenting himself as Mr Big, the guy who forced all those supplicants to their knees.
While a clear distinction between the message and the messenger is necessary, it gets very hard with Trump. During his first term of office, the tally of lies told by him stands at 30,000. That’s 21 per day. When your messenger comes with that kind of record, you do well to treat any message from him as though it were potentially explosive.
One of Trump’s strengths is that he knows what his followers want and he gives it to them. It doesn’t seem to matter to him that what he’s giving them is total codswallop, or even that it matters to them. He has learnt the art of the word-in-your-ear communication, and then it’s you and him against the rest of the world.
I suspect a number of Trump’s billionaire mates made a massive one-day killing when the shares went down and then soared (however briefly). Oh glorious day! Imagine if you were a billionaire and simply by doing literally nothing for a day you added almost one-tenth to your fortune. Hard not to love the guy who made that happen, eh? But when the bond market began to look jittery, Trump knew that this could do terrible things to the living standards of even his most devout followers. And so he put his lovely tariffs on a 90-day hold.
Like the little boy who stuck his finger in the dyke, it held disaster at bay, at least for now. But for someone who’s spent his life in business, Trump shows an amazing inability to learn. He should know that people don’t want to invest or do business with countries or regions that are unstable. And right now the US economy is as unstable and unpredictable as its President.
At the end of the 90 days, Trump may find that those who once bent the knee to him have turned away and begun business arrangements with countries other than the US.
Like who? Like China, say …
Never underestimate the law of unintended consequences.
