Timothy L. O'Brien, Columnist

Donald Trump's Trade War Strategy Is Easy to Grasp

There isn’t one, regardless of what the president’s defenders tell you.

June 3, 2019 at 11:10 AM UTC

Timothy L. O'Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”

Donald Trump's supporters want to believe that a grand strategy informs his tariff wars. They're deluded.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North America

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Hugh Hewitt, a conservative pundit and radio host, took to the Washington Post over the weekend to offer an ode to President Donald Trump for being frank and refreshingly lucid.

“America’s enemies are on notice,” Hewitt observed. “The president is no longer an eloquent pushover professor-president but a ruthless real estate developer and television network brawler-president whose principle weapons are blunt candor and walking away from the table.”