The Atlantic: Trump the Bulldozer

But over the past year and change, there’s been a shift: Trump, having shed himself of the aides most likely to try to divert him or change his mind, has followed through on several of the biggest unfulfilled threats I highlighted back then. The catch is that while Trump is getting his way, many of these policies are not turning out as well as the president hoped—as illustrated by severe market jitters on Monday over the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China. [...]

This is the template for what has happened in several of the cases where Trump had appeared to fold but has since followed through. Aides who felt he was acting either against the national interest or against his own interest have been shipped out: Cohn, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Chief of Staff John Kelly. They’ve been replaced by advisers who either encourage Trump, like Navarro, or are determined to enable rather than encumber him, such as acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and the television pundit Larry Kudlow, who succeeded Cohn.

In retrospect, the May 2018 announcement that Trump would withdraw from the nuclear-nonproliferation deal with Iran looks like a turning point. Trump had lambasted the deal as a candidate, but once entering office, he repeatedly recertified Iranian compliance with the agreement, bowing to the will of his aides. He seemed more ready to fire aides than to keep but overrule them. But starting with his withdrawal from the deal, Trump has begun following his instincts more fully.[...]

Negotiations with North Korea have gotten nowhere after two summits—though to his credit Trump did walk away from the second meeting, in Vietnam, when he felt no progress was being made. And Trump is now pursuing diplomatic negotiations with Iran on what appears to be, as with NAFTA and USMCA, just a rewrite of the deal that was previously in place, though whether anything will come of the push is unclear.

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Spiegel: How the European Commission President Won Over Trump

Of course, it's still too early to tell how long that agreement will hold. Many fear all it would take is one nasty tweet from Trump for the whole thing to come unspun again. And then comes the fact that the deal does nothing to solve the many other problems the Europeans have with this unpredictable American president. The man who, for now at least, seems prepared to call a kind of cease-fire in the trade conflict, but still wants to abolish NATO, threatens Iran and dismisses climate change as nonsense largely promulgated by Europeans. [...]

One day before his meeting with Trump, Juncker sent Martin Selmayr, the European Commission's general secretary, to meet with Kudlow. The two drafted a few paragraphs at a hotel in Washington they could agree upon. These were the cornerstones of the deal that would later emerge. [...]

When he arrived at the White House on Wednesday afternoon, Juncker still didn't know whether this plan was also liked by the president. It's a familiar pattern with Trump. In the end, he often follows the advice of the last adviser he has met with. For the Europeans, this raised the question of whether that person this time was economic adviser Kudlow or a hardliner like Commerce Secretary Ross. [...]

Ultimately, the outcome of the Washington meeting turned out to be a victory for moderates in the EU over those urging a hardline trade policy against the U.S., especially in France. Shortly before Juncker's visit, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had declared: "We're in the midst of a trade war." He refused to discuss any reduction in levies until the U.S. withdrew its punitive tariffs. "We refuse to negotiate with a gun pointed to our heads," he recently said.

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