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It was another day of instability in Washington thanks to Donald Trump and his announcement of a sudden implementation of across-the-board tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Even more suddenly, the pendulum shifted from Ukraine to Russia, with the mid-afternoon news that Washington would immediately resume sharing intelligence with Ukraine and unpause military aid shipments. US and Ukrainian officials released a joint statement indicating that Ukrainian officials agreed to the terms of a US-concocted plan for a 30-day ceasefire.
“The ball is in their court,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of Russian leaders.
Except, there’s another player involved: western Europe. Tuesday’s announcement from Jeddah is unlikely to wipe away the concerns of incensed leaders in the UK, France and Germany who in the wake of Trump’s Oval Office blowup with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky are now openly talking about reducing strategic reliance on the United States and filling a potential void left by a complete withdrawal of US support for Ukraine.
How long until this does permanent damage to the US relationship with western Europe — or has that already happened?
Stock markets fell again on Tuesday as US businesses contend with rapidly shifting US policies and the corresponding responses from US trading partners. Attempting to influence that narrative to a degree, the president unveiled his latest move to turn the White House into a vessel for enriching his allies: his purchase of a Tesla vehicle and usage of the White House lawn to showcase a sampling of the company’s fleet — alongside a grinning Elon Musk. Tesla’s stock has plummeted since late last year amid growing backlash over the EV company owner’s relationship with Trump.
Trump, in an interview over the weekend, conceded that there would be a “disruption” to the US economy — while the Atlanta branch of the federal reserve is projecting negative GDP growth for the first quarter of 2025.
“What I have to do is build a strong country,” the president said Sunday in an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo. “You can’t really watch the stock market.”
How much of that can the US economy take?
Capitol Hill, in a situation no one predicted, is providing an island of stability this week. Speaker Mike Johnson dodged a government funding deadline on Friday; despite threats from the president, at least one Republican, Thomas Massie, was staunchly opposed to a GOP continuing resolution to keep the government open that also cuts nondefense spending.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries kept his caucus largely in line opposed to the measure, bolstered by strong opposition to the spending cuts and a lack of assurances from Republicans that Elon Musk’s DOGE effort will not be able to touch approved funding. It didn’t matter; the measure passed several days before deadline, with one Democratic vote.
Johnson still may be able to keep command of his caucus in the House if Trump’s pressure is enough to keep others besides Massie in line — it was certainly sufficient last month, when the House narrowly passed a budget framework bill thanks to the president’s last-minute vote-whipping. As the conversation turns to fleshing out the GOP budget plan, he’ll definitely have chances to test how steady that control really is.
