Forget the lettuce – the US President is unlikely to step aside, no matter how bad things get
SEATTLE – The parallels between one-time prime minister Liz Truss and Donald Trump go well beyond sharing the same first letter of their surnames.
Both embarked on controversial economic plans they vowed would bring prosperity to their countries – dismissing the naysayers – only to see those economies crash to levels that had few precedents.
Both also claimed their decisions were correct, and claimed “dark forces” were trying to undermine them, even as the harm they caused was obvious for all to see.
Yet there is one very clear way in which the positions of Truss, 49, and the 78-year-old US president differ.
After weeks of turmoil and criticism from both opposition politicians and members of her own party, Truss resigned from her post.
She became Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, lasting just 49 days – fewer than a head of lettuce. The Daily Star set up a of live stream of the salad staple, celebrating its superior longevity to the Conservative prime minister.
There seems no way Trump is going to emulate Truss and stand aside.
Indeed, he has vowed his tariff policy will stay in place, telling reporters that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something”. He repeated his claim that the measures would see jobs and investment quickly return, making the country “wealthy like never before”.
This was not a view shared by the US or global markets, which plunged for the third successive day on Monday, adding to the $6.6trn wiped off last Thursday and Friday.
They briefly enjoyed a countersurge when it was reported a senior economics adviser to Trump, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, had suggested the President was considering a 90-day pause.
The White House dismissed this as “fake news” and the markets once again tumbled.
When it was clear the British public had grown tired of Truss – the fourth Conservative prime minster in succession – there was no shortage of people telling her it was time for her to leave, including senior members of her own party. Crispin Blunt, who served as justice minister for David Cameron, said “the game is up” after she caused a “shocking few weeks” for the Tories.
At this moment, there are just a few voices within Trump’s Republican party who are willing to speak out against him in public, despite mounting concerns about what is happening.
Over the weekend, top officials such as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were dispatched to TV studios to defend the measures – often unconvincingly – as a “one-time price adjustment”.
Hassett claimed that more than 50 countries were “coming to the table” to negotiate.
A handful of elected Republicans, including senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell, have condemned the tariffs, with Cruz saying: “Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I’m not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers, so my hope is these tariffs are short-lived.”
Other influential conservatives such Ben Shapiro, founder of the Daily Wire, said the measures were “probably unconstitutional”. Some Republicans have backed a bill that would seek to return control of tariffs to Congress.
Elon Musk, the billionaire who led Trump’s efforts to cut government departments and budgets, said there ought to be no tariffs between Europe and the US.
Will any of that be enough to stop the President or persuade him to change course?
Almost certainly not.
There was a time when Trump viewed the markets as a form of opinion poll or approval rating and telephoned his wealthy Wall Street friends to sound them out about ideas he was planning.
Those same people, who backed his bid for a second term, are now fuming, having persuaded themselves Trump would be good for tax cuts but not pursue tariffs, even though he talked about them on the campaign trail.
Trump, a known narcissist, is surrounded by the likes of JD Vance and Stephen Miller and other hardline loyalists who seem happy to burn down the system in order to reposition America.
The public can protest and hold marches, as it did in dozens of US cities this weekend, but that seems unlikely to have an impact.
Probably the best the Democratic Party can do is to work to retake control of the House of Representatives next year and finally be able to effect some control, however limited.
For now, the US – and the world – is stuck with Trump and his ruinous politics. Perhaps the scariest thing is not knowing how much worse things could get.