First, he raises tariffs. Then he drops them. He halts grants. Then a judge reinstates them. He fires federal workers and then they get rehired. If you feel like you’ve got an acute case of whiplash after the first few months of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, you are not alone.
The obvious upshot of these frantic reversals is costly and dangerous uncertainty. Decision-making is difficult when some basic rules of American life seem always in flux.
But the deeper implication of this frenzied approach is not uncertainty. It is a widespread and dawning recognition of vulnerability.
In foreign capitals, in corporate boardrooms, and across the institutions that compose U.S. civil society, leaders are coming to the realization that America’s federal government is not as steady or reliable a partner as they have long imagined. After decades of tacitly counting on Washington, they now see that they have to start making other plans.
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Yuval Levin is a Senior Fellow; Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy; Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies; and Editor in Chief, National Affairs
