What's in there for Trump and his friends? There is no way they actually care about bringing back all sorts of sweatshops in the US, and that can't just be blind nationalism. How do they personally benefit from that situation?
Trump seems to have been pro tariffs (for good reasons) since around forty years ago, so I think his misunderstood (no longer for good reasons, as globalism has since then established itself as the infrastructure) focus on tariffs is genuine.
His friends, however, probably understood the situation better and capitalised immensely on his newfound power and intent. The rich is going to continue getting richer by playing the game at tables you're not allowed to.
The true scale of the corruption and insider trading will become apparent soon enough, but we may have to wait until the next president comes along for investigations to pick up pace.
1) Double down because the one with the most money/power will eventually win with that strategy.
2) Bully everyone he thinks has less money/power than him so he can use strategy #1.
The thing about the bully strategy number two though is that you have to keep using your power and keep it on display for it to work. That means he has to keep doing bully like things, over and over, no matter how dumb they are. The thing about strategy 1 is that you can never admit you were wrong/back down because then you loose all the doubling you have put in. We are seeing the result of these two simplistic strategies at play. He will only stop because it has all come crashing down and even then he will not back down. He has never had to use a different strategy because he has been rich his whole life. He has never once been 'smart', just rich and we are all paying the price of that as everyone else has his entire life.
Believe it or not, it’s entirely possible that he’s doing things because he thinks they’re good for the country and its people. Hell, considering he’s not a career politician it’s probably generally more likely he’s doing it for those reasons than most in his position.
> Hell, considering he’s not a career politician it’s probably generally more likely he’s doing it for those reasons than most in his position.
that's some prescription strength copium you're passing around there... where'd you get it?
Now the approach is probably incorrect, but it is not that weird goal considering whole world history.
Between that and the crypto scams, likely insider trading going on we don't know about because nobody's home at the SEC or FBI - I would guess that his plan is simply to accumulate oligarch-level wealth so he's well positioned for the coming oligarchy.
He's also extorted his way into hundreds of millions of dollars in legal representation. I imagine that is case people in his administration find themselves facing criminal charges...or to disrupt/challenge as many elections as he can through endless legal challenges.