Queasy investors are calling Trump’s tariff bluff, and it looks like he will eventually fold

[SINGAPORE] As US Treasury bond yields surged last week, forcing US President Donald Trump to pause the crippling “reciprocal” tariffs that had just come into effect, I wondered why on earth he was trying to reset US trade policy in such a callous and destructive manner.

It occurred to me that his goal might not just be to address the country’s persistent trade deficits, but also to elicit a sense of dismay and shock among its trading partners in order to be able to claim he has struck a blow for ordinary Americans.

President Trump’s politics is about casting America as a victim and himself as its fearless saviour, prepared to take action nobody else will in order to defeat its “enemies”.