A tension has always existed between President Donald Trump's push for American retrenchment and his desire to 'Make America great again,' but the gulf has grown yawningly wide in the past three months. The United States is retreating from hard power, surrendering soft power, and yielding economic power. If this is what greatness looks like, what's the alternative' The economy is the most prominent of these at the moment, of course. Trump's vacillations yesterday on the size of the trade war relieved financial markets of some of their immediate terror, but they don't provide much in the way of predictability, which is what corporations crave. Trump has paused most tariffs for 90 days, but no one knows what will happen in that span, what comes next, or whether the president will change his mind again. After popping yesterday afternoon, stocks slid again today as investors apparently realized that the trade war with China was still on. (We warned them.) The latest flip reinforces...
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