Donald Trump‘s move-fast-and-break-things approach to governance appears to be faltering, as a slew of President Trump’s signature agenda items have been blocked, backtracked, or have just plain disappeared over the last few days.
Already, Trump is carving caveats into the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico that sent the stock market into utter free fall when they went into effect Tuesday. The very next day, the White House announced that it would exempt automakers from tariffs until April 2, while Politico reports that the administration may waive the 25% levy on certain agricultural products. The farming industry previously panned Trump’s tariff plan, saying the additional fees on pivotal imports would be a burden “some farmers may not be able to bear.”
Trump’s tariffs were only in place for a matter of hours before Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on Fox Business saying the president would “probably” meet Canada and Mexico halfway on a compromise this week.
The administration also appears to be walking back efforts to offload more than 400 government buildings as part of its cost-cutting spree. On Tuesday, the U.S. General Services Administration published a list of buildings that it was considering selling, noting that they were “not core to government operations.” That apparently included the FBI’s headquarters. But the list got shorter throughout the day, until Wednesday morning when it simply vanished.
According to an internal email obtained by the Associated Press, the GSA said the list had generated “an overwhelming amount of interest” and that it would republish the list after it had time to “evaluate this initial input.”
Even Trump’s deportation flights on military aircraft have been grounded. The use of military planes to deport people to Guantanamo Bay and other countries had signaled a show of force when the president took office. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the flashy move also sent deportation costs soaring, with some flights costing as much as $20,000 per person. The Journal reported that the administration has since stopped these military flights, even as some administration officials reportedly grumble that immigration arrests aren’t happening fast enough.
All of this is in addition to the steadily growing tally of court losses. On Wednesday alone, the Supreme Court blocked part of Trump’s attempted USAID funding freeze, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on cuts to overhead spending at the National Institutes of Health. Meanwhile, a federal board overseeing protections for government workers ordered thousands of laid off Department of Agriculture workers to be reinstated.
Of course, even as these policies get reversed, the chaos they unleashed—market panic, legal battles, and job losses—doesn’t just disappear. The president’s policies may not always stick, but the mess they leave behind will.
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