Plenty of great negotitors across history did, too. Trump gets played. Repeatedly. Predictably. His political instincts have been sharp enough that I'm increasingly chalking this up to age, but maybe he just had a better team around him the first time around.
But his crony buddies stand to benefit from farmers going to bankrupt. Makes it difficult to understand if this is incompetence or intentional malice at play...
I've always had high regard for Trump as a talented scumbag grifter of note.
He's been noticeably and increasingly off game since it seemed he was only campaigning for re-election to avoid a mountain of looming bad legal outcomes.
Much of his early second term "wins" I've marked as momentum success from having a ready to go game plan care of the Project 2025 crowd. His carry through on tariffs, dodging Epstein complications, handling free speech issues, etc. have been more chaotic than cunning.
Plenty of great negotitors across history did, too. Trump gets played. Repeatedly. Predictably. His political instincts have been sharp enough that I'm increasingly chalking this up to age, but maybe he just had a better team around him the first time around.