What did Donald Trump do today?

He caved on his tariffs after 14 hours, then pretended he hadn't caved.

Early this afternoon, about 14 hours after his so-called "Liberation" tariffs went into effect, Trump rolled back most of them to a flat 10%. This undid some, but not all, of the massive damage done to the capital reserves of companies and the retirement portfolios of tens of millions of Americans over the past four trading days.

The three countries the United States does the most business with—China, Canada, and Mexico—are still subject to tariffs ranging from 25% to 104%, meaning American consumers will pay prices inflated by proportional amounts for goods from those places.

Trump offered two explanations for why he had, yet again, imposed taxes on imported goods only to revoke them immediately. The first was that, supposedly, the nations of the world had been "kissing [his] ass" and "begging" for a "deal." He claimed that because many nations had not imposed retaliatory tariffs of their own, he had decided to be lenient. 

This is, to put it bluntly, a ridiculous lie. The White House refused to provide a list of the countries—Trump claimed a variety of numbers in the vicinity of 75—that had supposedly reached out to negotiate. But the reality is that Trump is unusual among world leaders in having the ability to instantly impose taxes like this, and most countries simply did not have time in the few hours since they went into effect (or the few days since they were threatened) to retaliate.

It's also undermined by the fact that Trump's own Treasury Secretary had been publicly asking other countries not to retaliate, presumably in order to give Trump this off-ramp—and also by Trump posting an all-caps ransom demand to the same effect after he'd caved.

Trump's other justification was that other people, not himself, lost their nerve, and that he was mercifully pausing the full implementation out of consideration for their feelings. Specifically, he said he had to act because Americans were getting "yippy." 

"The yips" are a golf term for someone who misses easy putts under pressure.

It is much more likely that Trump was acting on the genuine fear his own staff felt over the unfolding consequences of his actions. Trump has crashed stock markets before, but this had the effect of threatening the market for U.S. Treasury bonds. That would mean that investors no longer saw American debt as the safest possible investment during economic downturns—and that would be absolutely catastrophic for the American economy.

As the New York Times reported, virtually all of Trump's senior staff intervened once the bond markets started souring, and succeeded in making clear to him that he would not be able to avoid being blamed this time:

Mr. Trump’s decision was driven by fear that his tariffs gamble could quickly turn into a financial crisis. And unlike the two previous crashes of the past 20 years — the global financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020 — this crisis would have been directly attributable to only one man.

Trump's sudden reversal created almost as much chaos as the initial announcement had. For example, the White House was unable to answer reporters' questions about what the tariff rate on Canada and Mexico was right now—whether it was the 10% global-across-the-board rate, the previous rate of 25% since they had not been part of the tariffs that went into effect today, or the two added together for 35%.

Why does this matter?

• Attributing to other people the emotions that you are feeling is called projection, and it is not a sign of good mental health.

• Chaos and uncertainty are not good for the economy.

• The United States economy is more important than Donald Trump's need to save face.

• If you start a fire in your own house, and then put it out after it's burned down part of the house, you are still an arsonist, not a firefighter.