What caused Donald Trump to walk back on many of his tariffs last week was not domestic pressure but a run on the market for US Treasuries led by large institutional savers. If US debt is no longer a safe asset, then American hegemony is also at risk.
Fair enough!
That said, as a general principle I don’t think it’s all that useful to talk about what Trump and his cronies (accomplices? co-conspirators? henchmen? whichever has the worst connotation) claim is the intent of their plans. Instead, we should relentlessly redirect the discussion back to what they actually do. People need to understand what’s actually happening and stop giving them undeserved benefit of the doubt.