Trump Appears to Be Listening to Wall Street

President Trump has seemed to relish escalating the fight against his detractors on a range of issues in his second term. With one exception: economic policy. Trump has lowered the temperature on a number of key issues, including the trade war against China, threats to fire Fed chief Jerome Powell, and tariffs in general. Coverage:

• Trump and the White House say this is all part of a brilliant master plan that will pay off in the long run. "Have some patience and you will see," is how press secretary Karoline Leavitt put it Wednesday. But an analysis by David E. Sanger in the New York Times puts a different spin on things: Trump "blinked. Then he blinked again. And again."

• A story in the Wall Street Journal has a similar take, beginning like so: "President Trump has met his biggest opponent—and it's the stock market." The story reports that in each instance of Trump's turnaround, he had been "presented with evidence by his aides and cabinet secretaries, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, that holding firm on his decisions would spur further disarray in the markets." The president himself acknowledged that he paused tariffs earlier this month because the markets were getting a "little queasy."
• Politico also has a story on the subject, concluding that "Wall Street has his ear." It notes that the CEOs of Walmart, Target, and Home Depot met with Trump this week to discuss the tariffs' unsustainable impact on global supply chains, and the Chamber of Commerce has been raising the alarm about the effects on small businesses. The story sees the pullbacks as evidence of the growing influence of Bessent.
• The warnings from Wall Street are not done yet. CNN talks to Ken Griffin, the billionaire supporter of Trump who runs the Citadel hedge fund and who is worried that the president's trade war is hurting the nation's "brand." Elaborating: "In the financial markets, no brand compares to the brand of the US Treasuries—the strength of the US dollar and the strength and creditworthiness of US Treasuries. No brand came close. We put that brand at risk."

(More President Trump stories.)