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President Trump’s tariffs sent stocks and investors on a white-knuckle ride this past week. They also ramped up the Democratic resistance machine to apoplectic anti-Trump levels.
Then came Wednesday afternoon.
Trump announced a 90-day pause on all the “reciprocal” tariffs that went into effect at midnight, with the exception of China. Within minutes, the stock market skyrocketed.
This is, should they choose to utilize it, a teachable moment for Democrats. Despite depicting Trump as a hard and fast tyrant, which they are wont to do, Dems got an up-close look at Trump the strategist and compromiser.
Before he tapped the brakes, his administration said that more than 50 countries had reached out for economic negotiations in the wake of his “Liberation Day” tariffs, including Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Canada, Mexico and others.
As Fox News reported, Vietnam’s Acting President Han Duck-soo called for negotiations to begin Thursday.
Trump said Tuesday on Truth Social that he and Han “just had a great call.”
“We talked about their tremendous and unsustainable Surplus, Tariffs, Shipbuilding, large-scale purchase of U.S. LNG, their joint venture in an Alaska Pipeline, and payment for the big-time Military Protection we provide to South Korea,” the president wrote.
Trump said they “have the confines and probability of a great DEAL for both countries,” with South Korea sending “their top TEAM” to the U.S.
“We are likewise dealing with many other countries, all of whom want to make a deal with the United States,” Trump said.
The ones who should make a deal are the Democrats.
Trump is making moves, making deals and making changes. And sitting on the sidelines resisting for all they’re worth isn’t doing the party any favors, nor the Americans they purport to care about.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) took aim at Elon Musk’s DOGE directives on CNBC’s “Squawk Box:” “I think they are likely to find awful examples of wasteful spending. I don’t contest that. I’m sure they can legitimately offer transparency and sunlight to the American people.”
Khanna wanted Congress to vote on Musk’s findings, but the question remains: if Dems are unsurprised by wasteful spending, why haven’t they addressed it themselves? And if they want to offer “sunlight” to the American people, why not offer their own waste-cutting plans?
The last thing Democrats expected was a U-turn on tariffs, and all the lamentations of recession and collapse and the end of democracy as we know it did little more than stoke more anxiety in those fearful for their 401(k)s.
Reaching across the aisle is anathema on Capitol Hill, and our country is poorer for it. Democrats don’t have to like Trump, nor many of his policies, but boos and takedowns don’t advance policy.
Back in 1996, then-President Clinton nixed a pair of welfare reform bills, though Republican Speaker of the House New Gingrich and other conservatives kept pushing the legislation. Gingrich and Clinton negotiated privately, and Clinton ultimately signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
Welfare cases and poverty rates both declined during the late 1990s.
That’s how political opposites can get things done for the American people. If Democrats don’t learn from Trump’s tariff maneuver, it’s their stock that could fall with voters.
