On Wednesday, during his ‘liberation day’ speech, President Trump made good on his promise to enact ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on almost every US trading partner. While they were put in with the intent of bringing manufacturing back to the United States and reducing trade deficits with other countries, the tariffs have so far only caused a massive sell off in wall street, where the Dow dropped 4 and 5.5 percent respectively in the days afterwards. Despite this market turmoil, Trump has never been more defiant, choosing to spend his Friday golfing, and stating that his ‘policies will never change’. On the surface, this seems quite unnatural for Trump, who has often bragged about the stock market gains that occurred in his first term. Trump’s unconcerned attitude towards the markets and public perception underscores a stark difference between his second and first term.
When Trump was unexpectedly elected in 2016, he was largely a novice to the political arena. Due to this, Trump was often used as a vessel to do what more standard conservative lawmakers wanted. For example, Trump signed into law the 2017 tax cuts, which was arguably a traditional conservative dream bill that lowered taxes and rolled back regulation. Also, Trump’s first term cabinet was heavily made up of Bush era neoconservatives who influenced him to tone down his policies and moderate his more populist views. This can be seen in many cases, and some examples are:
- Tariffs:
Instead of tariffing every country like he is doing now, Trump’s first term cabinet convinced him to take a middle road between full support of free trade or full protectionism, as he instead only put limited tariffs on countries like China.
- NATO/Europe:
In his second term, Trump is acting much more cold towards traditional European allies, as he has put massive tariffs on EU countries and even openly stated that he would let Russia do ‘whatever they want’ to NATO countries that don’t pay enough. While Trump also pressured NATO in his first term, they were more behind the scenes negotiations than public spats. Furthermore, in his first term Trump made it clear he supported Ukraine, while in this term he has been much more unpredictable, engaging in public arguments with Zelensky in the oval office and even cutting off military aid and intelligence for a brief time.
- The Cabinet:
In his first term, Trump’s support in the republican party was still quite shaky, causing him to have a more orthodox Republican cabinet. Examples of this are interventionalists like Mike Pompeo as his secretary of state and John Bolton as his national security advisor, and also Nikki Haley as the UN ambassador. Furthermore, in order to shore up evangelical support, which he was lacking, Trump made religious conservative Mike Pence his running mate. Interestingly, all four of these people, along with many others in his original cabinet have expressed opposition to him now. This is a very stark contrast to Trump’s current term, where his vice President is former Trump skeptic but now hardline loyalist JD Vance, and his secretary of defense is former FOX news host Pete Hegseth. While we have seen limited pushback on tariffs from some senate republicans, it is clear that Donald Trump has a much more solid grasp on the Republican party now, both in congress and in his cabinet.
In 2017, Trump entered office unprepared and inexperienced, causing him to run a largely standard republican presidency with traditional conservative advisors, despite the outward inflammatory rhetoric. While he certainly had a platform, it sometimes seemed that his advisors and lawmakers had more control than him at times. However, coming into his second term, it is clear through his aggressive tariff policy, among other actions that Trump is fully in control. This time, it is the republican party following his lead, not the other way around.