Trump's In A Big Hurry--How Much Time Does He Have?

In an exchange this morning with commenter NedZeppelin we get to what is possibly the heart of all the turmoil in Trump World—which happens to be the whole world, since everything is connected. I’ll paste in the original exchange, then add additional thoughts:

NedZeppelin:

The Kellogg-Rubio-Walz story is to distract and occupy the neocons and their extremely powerful backers, the real story is Witkoff, Vance and Gabbard. Trump can’t just turn off the switch - the President, even Trump, has less real power than you might think. I think the deal has already been made with Russia and it includes Odessa by force, Trump merely letting the kiddies play (and think he is on board) while the Russians finish their SMO. And there is no chance of war with Iran. We will end up with a permanent, enforceable (by the Russians) non nuclear proliferation deal with Iran, unlike the weak Obama era deal.

Mark Wauck:

But if "the President, even Trump, has less real power than you might think," how is it that he can pull all this off against the will of "the neocons and their extremely powerful backers"? I get that this is probably the reason Trump is in such a rush--yesterday he was again saying that "a week is too long" for coming to a deal. He's concerned that his window for relative freedom to deal--before those extremely powerful backers that he sold his campaign to shut him down--is likely going to close pretty soon.

The problem I fear--because I'd like to see the results you forecast--is that those "extremely powerful" backers could cause problems for Trump in the Senate, especially if anything requires confirmation. The Russians have always indicated a strong preference for something in writing and both they and the Iranians must be hinky of less binding deals--they know Trump is certainly capable of walking away from "agreements" and so would any other president.

The tariff fiasco--so far, and I do support what Trump is trying to do--has emboldened the anti-Trumpers, and the "extremely powerful" backers will not be slow to attempt to throw a wrench in each and every part of Trump's agenda to simply slow everything down.

Where to start? With this—these are all moving parts and they’re all connected. They’re also all connected to the deadlines that Trump is facing, political as well as fiscal/economic. Trump is famous for setting supposed deadlines on others, but he’s facing deadlines himself, imposed by powerful forces.

Trump’s freedom to deal derives from his landslide comeback—financially fueled by the same “extremely powerful backers” of the Neocons who are pushing for war with Iran and continued war with Russia. Part of that deal was the appointment of what has been described as a “Neocon dream team” by Trump: Ratcliffe, Hegseth, Rubio, Waltz—even Patel. Trump appears to have been able to wangle Tulsi as DNI, but that’s about it. Veep Vance may also have been a sop to Trump.

Thus the need to bring in Witkoff, whose loyalty is to Trump. The trashing of the First Amendment by the Jewish Nationalist fringe, the renewed war on Yemen, the renewed war on Palestinians—these were all necessary concessions to that fringe, in Trump’s view of his position. NedZeppelin calls the appointments “distraction”, but perhaps he would agree that “cover” or “misdirection play” is a bit closer to what’s going on. NedZ also calls the JCPOA “the weak Obama era deal”, but the reality is that Trump is actually a hey presto changeo rebranding of JCPOA to a new Trump deal that will be “the weak Obama era deal” all over again—which was, in fact, a good deal for the entire world, except in the eyes of the Jewish Nationalist fringe who financed Trump 2.0. Witkoff’s public statements have made this totally clear.

IOW, Trump—in this reading of what’s going on, and not to put too fine a point on it—intends to betray his backers, and his window of opportunity is small and steadily closing as those “extremely powerful backers” get the wind up and begin marshaling their political forces. He needs to do this fast if he intends to assert US interests against the Jewish Nationalist demand to subordinate American interests to their own interests:

dana @dana916

The United States has notified Israel of its intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of troops from Syria within two months.

This was reported by the Israeli news portal Ynet.

According to the publication, Israel tried to prevent this decision, but Washington made it clear that it was not going to change its plans. Nevertheless, the Israeli military continues to seek a review.

One of the options under consideration is a partial withdrawal of US troops, a senior official said, as Israel fears that US actions will increase Turkey's influence in the region.

The same considerations apply to the Russia situation. We’ve seen in the past week a closing of ranks against Trump by his Neocon appointees, with public statements that attempt to box Trump in, and rumors of RINO senators seeing the coast clearing for them to show their anti-Trump colors. Cautiously.

All this makes what I referred to as “the tariff fiasco” extremely concerning. As I said, I support what Trump intends to accomplish—as I understand it—with the tariffs. However, I would argue that the implementation lacked proper preparation and that the Big Bang approach was probably ill advised. For example. That Big Bang Trump Tariff initiative was accompanied by the usual insults directed at China. Trump was immediately forced to backpedal, indicating that he would later prove “gracious” to China if they played along. Apparently Trump believes the insults—which were seconded by Veep Vance—are a necessary part of his initiative, but they backfired against China if Trump wanted to get the tariff deal done quickly. It has led to delay and reformulation and—worst of all—alarm among his electoral base, who were spooked by the prospect of losing their shirts.

Why did Trump do this? There are those who argue that the real reason that Trump is in such a hurry to get the tariffs in place has to do with the extreme short term debt that Janet Yellen saddled him with. Proponents of this theory—which, to my economically uneducated mind, seems plausible—argue that the Yellen debt bomb is an existential threat to Trump’s support in Congress, because the bomb is set to explode shortly before the 2026 midterms, bringing wild inflation and recession. In this sense, DOGE savings, the (well earned) slash and burn approach to the federal government, and the tariffs are all aimed at getting the US fiscal house in some sort of order so that the short terms debt can be rolled over to long term at reasonable rates. Again, this explains the hurry. There is little time to lose.

The good news, at least on the tariff front, is that China is signaling a readiness to deal. Is it possible that Putin has played a hand in this, as well as in the Iran deal? If so, Trump will owe Putin big time—even more than he does already.

Recall that just yesterday Trump complained that the next Iran talks were scheduled for a week from last Saturday: “A week is a long time!” Well, not really, if you’re the Iranians and you need to go talk with the Russians and also hold your own internal discussions:

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

Araghchi will meet Putin in Moscow Tomorrow.

Important meeting, Russia will probably tell Iran what solution it supports/endorse, and depending on what they agree on, this should influence Saturday's talks in Muscat.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi is expected to visit Moscow this week, he will deliver a written message from Iranian Supreme Leader to Russia’s President Putin. (Iran Nuances)

“A written message” suggests extreme security measures, but this looks promising. It also looks very much like the negotiations are almost as much with Putin as with Iran. Putin’s a very busy guy—meetings with Witkoff, meetings with Iranians, meetings with the Chinese.

Yesterday, too, the WH claimed that tariffs on China were reaching 245%, but that’s open to interpretation—the tariffs are wildly variable by category and are subject to almost constant revisions:

Meanwhile, China continues to retaliate against the tariffs, while Trump has modified his approach from threats to urgent calls for negotiations—suggesting that he’s trying to do China a favor:

Trump Presses China to Make Tariff Offer to Calm Trade War

President Donald Trump called on China to reach out to him in order to kick off negotiations aimed at resolving the escalating trade fight between the world’s two largest economies.

“The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, reading what she said was a statement Trump dictated.

“There’s no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger, and China wants what we have, what every country wants, what we have — the American consumer — or to put another way, they need our money,” the statement continued.

And God knows we have lots of money to give China and everybody else—it’s called inflation.

When asked about the US’s stance at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that “if the US truly wants to resolve the issue through dialog and negotiation, it should stop using maximum pressure and stop threats and blackmail.”

“For any dialog to happen, it must be based on equality, respect and mutual benefit,” Lin said.

So, according to the Chinese, the ball is actually in Trump’s court. Trump appears to be responding, although not all threats are off the table. At the same time that Trump is urging China to “make an offer,” he’s suggesting retaliation outside the retaliatory tariff framework, which hasn’t worked that well, could be in the works:

Megatron @Megatron_ron

BREAKING:  Trump plans to use tariff negotiations and blackmail other countries to isolate China - WSJ

Trump plans to offer lower tariffs to over 70 countries in exchange for cutting economic ties with China.

Under the proposal by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, partner nations would be asked to:

Block Chinese goods from transiting through their borders.

Ban Chinese firms from setting up operations.

Avoid importing cheap Chinese industrial products.

That’s a threat of full on war. The argument would be that Trump would not be threatening to “go nuclear” unless he were under extreme fiscal/economic time pressure. Nobody would know that better than Bessent.