President Donald Trump doesn’t really have friends so much as he has vendors or employees, who may be discarded, fired, or shortchanged once he no longer has a use for them.

Likewise, under Trump, the United States has no allies. We have only counterparts.

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Instead of having relationships, Trump and his administration engage in transactions. This maximizes Trump’s leverage and fits his quid-pro-quo worldview perfectly.  

Some recent examples:

Trump threatened this past week to make Canada “pay a financial price … so big that it will be read about in History Books.”

He also called for a primary challenge against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a very conservative and generally Trump-supporting member.

Likewise, he withdrew intelligence support from Ukraine, triggering increased attacks by Russia.

The pattern is this: Trump attacks would-be allies because he believes these attacks, and the implicit threat they lay for others, make it more likely he will get what he wants.

Maybe this worked in New York City real estate. Maybe it didn’t.

In trade, war, and domestic politics, this hard-nosed transactionalism surely works on occasion, but it also often undermines his causes.

Trump’s tariffs are temporary and unpredictable

Trump and his allies have justified his tariffs with many competing arguments, most of which fit into one of three categories: (1) Tariffs will raise revenue, (2) tariffs give us leverage to get trade, security, or immigration concessions from other countries, or (3) tariffs create an environment in which domestic manufacturing can return.

Let’s first consider the third reason. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently argued that Trump is “increasingly convinced of the McKinley model: High tariffs lead to massive capital investments in the U.S., leading to high-paying jobs. … I assume this will be a two-to-three year transition where we’ll all have to adjust.”

This vision fails due to two standard problems with Trump’s transactionalism: unpredictability and the permanent costs of temporary problems.

Begin with the unpredictability and consider the 200% tariffs Trump threatened on March 13 against wine, champagne, and all alcoholic products from the European Union.

Theoretically, massive tariffs on European wines could foster a more robust U.S. wine industry. It could drive investors to pour capital into vintners, who would then hire American farmhands, buy up American land, and plant vineyards. Of course, it would be a few years before this investment produced a single bottle of wine, so these investors and vintners would need to be confident the tariffs would stay in place for many years.

But they won’t. These wine tariffs are explicitly negotiating tactics. That requires flexibility.

Then, consider that nearly everything Trump does is nakedly a negotiating tactic and, thus, temporary. Then you realize how hard it is to invest in anything.

“Uncertainty is exactly what Trump relishes about his tariff powers,” commentator Josh Barro explained. “Everyone is at the mercy of his announcements, which can change at any time, so business executives and foreign leaders have to hang on his every word and constantly come to him begging for relief.”

This isn’t some side effect of the tariffs and Trump’s ever-shifting stances. It’s why Trump does it. “If he provided ‘clarity’ by committing to a specific and unchanging tariff policy,” Barro notes, “he’d be giving up both leverage and attention, two of the things he likes most.”

Trump isn’t a pioneer on this front. “Everything is on the table” has long been Washington code for, “You’d better send your lobbyists begging, PAC check in hand.” But Trump takes it to an extreme. While “everything is on the table” maximizes Trump’s leverage, it makes it impossible for an entrepreneur or executive to know what sort of regulatory, trade, labor, or tax environment he might be operating in two months from now.

The problem of unpredictability also undermines the revenue argument. The main benefit of tariff revenue, according to Trump’s allies, is that it can reduce the tax burden on American workers and companies. Trump, for instance, said in his first week in office that his tariffs could replace the income tax.

For tariffs to fund a large portion of the government, the tariff revenue would have to be reliable. Obviously, ever-shifting tariffs do not provide reliable revenue.

Tariffs’ short-term pain causes long-term damage

Then, there’s the second problem with this transactional and ever-shifting trade strategy: The short-term costs end up doing long-term damage. This undermines both the trade-war-leverage model of tariffs and the “McKinley model,” which is that tariffs could foster U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Consider Canada. Trump has spent the months since his election making various threats against Canada, including annexing it as the 51st state, and imposing various tariffs on it. His first batch of tariffs on Canada went up and then came down. The next batch would add significantly to the cost of Canadian aluminum and timber — which is not ideal when we have a housing shortage.

Maybe these threatened tariffs won’t materialize and linger, and maybe we will get trade concessions from Canada as a result of these tariffs and threats.

But look at what happens in the interim: Canada turns against the U.S.

Conservatives led in national polls in Canada for the past four years and seemed certain to win a majority in Parliament and thus elect Pierre Poilievre as prime minister. The tide shifted in the Liberals’ direction shortly after Trump’s victory, and the Liberals now lead in polls.

That is, Trump’s hard-line negotiations could result in a few more years of Liberal governance in Canada.

And under the “McKinley model,” in which tariffs make room for domestic manufacturing through higher prices, the short-term pain also causes long-term damage.

First is the cost to consumers, who are still reeling from years of Bidenflation and weeks of high egg prices. For families, months of higher prices can impose lifelong costs by denying a high school graduate the ability to attend college or depleting savings enough to put a dream home out of reach.

Second is the cost to employers and their employees. Half of all U.S. imports are intermediate goods, such as materials or parts for goods manufactured here. Tariffs on aluminum could lead to layoffs at a U.S. factory that makes washing machines or cars.

Asking workers just to accept all of these costs for the promised future of more U.S. manufacturing is oddly similar to the demand by the globalist free-trader that factory workers should be fine with losing their jobs because cheaper Chinese goods will be good for the whole economy, create a consumer surplus, and thus create new jobs in other fields and parts of the country.

If you’ve visited Fayette County, Pennsylvania, you know the costs of such employment shocks include shuttered churches, ruined towns, and opioid epidemics.

‘Trump antibodies’

In domestic politics, Trump likewise has no loyalty or commitment. He will praise someone one day and try to sink that person the next.

Recently, Massie said he would oppose the government funding bill Trump supports, and so Trump called for a Republican primary challenge to oust Massie.

The problem: Trump did the same thing to Massie in 2020 when he opposed Trump’s massive COVID funding bills.

Trump then endorsed Massie in 2022 as a “conservative warrior.” Now, he’s trying to destroy Massie again.

Massie is unimpressed. “I had the Trump antibodies for a while,” Massie said this past week. “I needed a booster. … It’ll blow over.”

If you’re always making nuclear threats against anyone who crosses you, the threats lose their effect after a while.

Foreign policy

Trump has appalled many foreign policy experts by his treatment of America’s closest allies, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. Likewise, he clashed publicly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

The inconsistency, transactional stance, and quid-pro-quo thinking are destabilizing.

Strategic ambiguity, of course, is legitimate and often useful. It was part of Trump’s foreign policy success in his first term. Why did Trump avoid the mistake of his predecessors, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, by never starting a new foreign war? Because Trump showed enough willingness to use force (missile strikes against Syria, for instance) that he could deter aggression but avoided firm commitments that would drag us into war.

Also, Trump believes he gains maximum leverage when he can always change direction.

DONALD TRUMP, THE QUID PRO QUO PRESIDENT

For all those positives, though, a foreign policy that devalues even temporary alliances does real harm. For instance, Trump’s temporary withdrawal of intelligence help for Ukraine might have persuaded Zelensky to agree to a ceasefire, but was that worth it? As of now, Russia hasn’t agreed to the ceasefire, and in the days Ukraine lacked intelligence help, Russia took advantage and unleashed unusually fierce missile attacks. Trump’s negotiating ploy may have resulted in more death and destruction in Ukraine.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Trump is averse to commitment and relationships. He’s famous for stiffing his vendors and cheating on his wives. He believes this has served him well. At the moment, it does not appear to be serving the United States well.