Yes, Trump Always Chickens Out, TACO is accurate
National Post, 17 June 2025
Trump recalculates constantly and adjust to the prevailing winds of the day, unburdened by principle or long-term strategy
Monday must have been painful for President Donald J. Trump. On the tenth anniversary of his escalator descent from the gaudy heights of Trump Tower, he was confined to a modest conference table, one amongst the G7, in a Kananaskis, Alberta room decorated in modest alpine themes, rather than late-Saddam gilded baubles. By evening he was gone, back to Washington to preside over the Israel-Iran war. Given that his G7 counterparts are perpetually on tenterhooks should he launch an eruption, his early leave-taking was likely unlamented.
There was urgent business back home, which Trump even addressed in Kananaskis. The leading — there is a vigorous competition for the title — malign agitator of MAGA world, Tucker Carlson, was suggesting that Trump had been sucked into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warmongering. That is more than a bit sensitive, as it would suggest that Trump’s thrashing about on tariffs and trade was also operative in foreign policy.
Making sense of Tucker’s ravings is a fool’s errand, but that he got such adverse attention from Trump is noteworthy. Trump had started the week insisting, as per usual, on a deal with Tehran, and concluded it — after waiting overnight to better align himself with the prevailing side — by backing Israel’s preemptive strike.
Thus, Netanyahu has taught the world something about how to handle Trump — which was, in fact, the principal, if unspoken, agenda item at the G7. Better, actually, to discuss all that with Trump out of the room.
Netanyahu has been threatening strikes against Iran since long before Trump glided down the escalator. Former administrations were opposed and took that option of the table in favour of various combinations of diplomacy and sanctions. The original Obama deal with Iran was opposed by Netanyahu, and he was pleased when Trump ended it during his first term. The Israeli leader — next year celebrating the thirtieth (!) anniversary of first becoming prime minister — has a longer view than Trump’s permits himself. Washington may be governed by social media, but Jerusalem isn’t.
Netanyahu knew that the Trump administration — governed by the desideratum that any deal is another addition to the oeuvre of the art of the dealer — would, given enough time, make a bad deal with Iran, one that did not protect Israeli interests. Just last month, Trump sidelined Israel in declaring a ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen, having failed to knock them out with military strikes. Then, Trump negotiated directly with Hamas to release an American hostage, separating that case from the other Israeli hostages. Then, Trump signed a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, a carrot that had been previously tied to an extension of the Abraham Accords. Trump gave it up prematurely.
If all that happened in May, it was clear that Trump could well capitulate to Iran in June. Evidence from elsewhere confirmed Trump’s irresoluteness. He has alternately been badgering Ukraine and Russia with greater or lesser ferocity for months, only to see aerial missile and drone strikes increase. He backed down on tariffs with China when it cut off mineral exports. He backed down on deportations when his friends in the luxury hotel business complained about difficulties in exploiting cheap labour.
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