We Are Too Naive For Donald Trump

Photo via Reuters

SUSY TERAN: Trump’s form of governance is different from what we are used to. To successfully navigate the next four years we must adapt. The issues of tariffs, the TikTok ban and birthright citizenship, provide key insights into how Trump operates and how we must in turn adjust our expectations and understanding of politics under this administration. 

When Trump started to talk about tariffs during his campaign, scholars, economists and responsible citizens immediately began researching protectionist economic theory. With Trump in office, everyone is becoming an expert. The panicked media has tried to puzzle out who pays for tariffs while concerned consumers are buying products in bulk to get ahead of anticipated price hikes. Yet it seems all that anxious studying may have been for nothing.  

As soon as both Canada and Mexico pledged to boost border enforcement, Trump dropped the tariffs – for now. The President is using the threat of tariffs as part of a diplomacy stratagem (assuming we can even still call this diplomacy) to get something he wants from his neighboring nations. Indeed, the whole situation is more akin to a business negotiation than a diplomatic mission – instead of meeting halfway one party deployed a coercive bluff that ultimately forced the other two to submit, begrudgingly, but submit nonetheless. 

Trump is many things, including a CEO. It was never about Trump endorsing “protectionism” over a “free market economy;” it was about his immigration goals and tariffs happened to be the vehicle and veil that helped him achieve those goals. In this case, Trump’s intention was known, but the whole TikTok affair shows that Trump not only knows how to negotiate, but also how to scheme. 

In 2020, Trump moved to ban the Chinese-owned App, denouncing the app as a threat to national security. Given this, it was rather shocking when Trump staved off the TikTok shut down after the Supreme Court’s decision. It was a puzzling and shameless move, even for Trump.  

Trump filed a brief to the Supreme Court before the case was argued expressing his views of the platform as a “unique medium for freedom of expression.” Am I honestly expected to believe this? Recent developments suggest Trump wants the US to acquire TikTok. The exact reason remains unclear, but likely the interest lies in TikTok’s algorithm. Technology and AI have been a consistent priority issue for Trump and having TikTok’s algorithm has become key in the race against China.

Therefore, Trump’s support for TikTok was not out of an unyielding adoration for the First Amendment. The ban conveniently provided Trump with the leverage he needed to force ByteDance – TikTok’s parent company – into selling. Whether this scheme was recently concocted or designed from the start sometime around 2020 is yet another thing we don’t know. But, there is definitely a scheme playing out and Congress, by passing the bill, in what seemed miraculous bipartisan cooperation, unwittingly helped advance it. Only when Trump staved off the shutdown did he show his cards. And he may yet have an ace (or two!) up his sleeve. 

There is a third issue we have been analyzing too superficially– the end of birthright citizenship. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship was immediately blocked by the courts. It seems odd to think that Trump could have ever fathomed that he would be successful given how complex this issue is. Why did he sign the executive order then? It definitely made for a strong and symbolic political statement. But there might be something else going on.

In “Matter of Opinion,” a New York Times podcast, the hosts speculate that the executive order was only the first move in a long-term plan. Trump’s real intention, they argue, was to get the issue “on the agenda.” He wanted to encounter judicial resistance because then the order would transform into a “test case” for the courts. Eventually, the Supreme Court would be forced to “specify what [birthright citizenship] is and start building limits around it.” This is all to say, in this government, things are not always what they appear to be.

Trump governs like a CEO, a master negotiator, one who has something grander in mind, an ace always hidden. It is a new form of governance that involves plans within plans within plans. This is politics to the tenth power. Indeed, for every action, for every executive order, we must foresee the second intention and expect a third. Only then might we be able to play in this new era of Machiavellian Politics.

Susy Terán is a staff writer for On the Record from Quito, Ecuador. She is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Government, and double minoring in Creative Writing and Theology and Religious Studies.