Today marks the end of the sixty-day negotiating period set forth in the memorandum of understanding the Trump administration signed with Iran. By now, we were supposed to have agreements on the status of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program. And we do! We can all agree that the Trump administration doesn’t know what to do about either problem. Happy Monday.
Join Mark Hertling and Ben Parker for Command Post today at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Substack and YouTube.
The Other War We Aren’t Winning
by Andrew Egger
I am not, as a rule, a big-time media critic. Journalism’s a tough job in a dying industry, and writing about writing can get a little navel-gazy—life’s too short!
Still, sometimes in life our principles are tested. So it was this weekend, when I found myself unable to stop thinking about a remarkable new Politico article: “TACO No More: How Trump Won On Tariffs.”
The headline alone was fascinating. Until I read it, I personally had been unaware not only how Trump had won on tariffs, but that he had won on them at all. I had been laboring under the delusion that Trump’s tariffs were actually treating us pretty badly: slowing economic growth, pushing up prices, annihilating small businesses, failing to deliver the resurgence of manufacturing that Trump promised. Plus they’ve been losing in court: The Supreme Court crushed his “Liberation Day” tariffs as unconstitutional this year, forcing Trump both to refund billions in collected tariffs and to scramble to reconstitute his tariff regime on other statutory pretexts.
I’d even been harboring suspicions that the tariffs were a major political loser: Only 33 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s trade and tariff policies, with nearly 59 percent disapproving, per the Silver Bulletin polling average on the question. Americans have soured on tariffs so much that even the most tariff-friendly Democrats are starting to run against them: A recent ad for Ohio’s Sherrod Brown quotes a local farmer saying that Sen. Jon Husted “supports the tariffs which have driven the prices down which we can sell our crops.”
In what sense, then, does Politico argue that Trump “won” on tariffs? Simple: Last year, many worried that his tariffs would actually crash the global economy, and so far, they haven’t:
After all, for all his swerves and concessions, the president has not abandoned a global trade war that has fueled inflation or a stalemated conflict with Iran that has rattled oil markets.
And financial markets have become pretty zen about all of it. . . . tariffs, which have upended supply chains, raised costs for businesses and fueled tension with foreign allies and adversaries alike? These days, they mostly just warrant a shrug from investors.
Trump often gets graded on a curve, but this is just grade inflation. What other president has been lucky enough to find their major economic policies graded on a scale of “if it didn’t spark a once-in-a-century depression, it’s a win”?
There are two major reasons why Trump’s tariffs have “merely” resulted in slow-motion economic damage rather than spectacular market disaster. One is simple: Trump himself backed away from the most self-evidently insane ones. In April 2025, we were staring down the barrel of tariffs on China that would have forced a total decoupling between the two economies. The resulting bond-market panic spooked Trump into reversal and gave us the concept of the TACO trade; he hasn’t dared reach for anything like the same level of tariffs since. To call his remaining tariffs a “win” simply because they weren’t as disastrous as the ones originally proposed is ridiculous—why should we praise someone for hitting us in the face with a hammer just because it feels better when he stops?
The other major factor is that the effects of Trump’s trade wars have been partially obscured by the bigger economic story of the past two years: the economic sugar rush of our artificial intelligence boom and the corresponding mammoth data center buildout. Ironically, as Bloomberg News noted this month, that buildout has been taking place on a different trade-policy planet than the rest of the economy: “The deep-pocketed tech firms racing to build data centers have largely gotten a pass” from Trump’s tariffs while importing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of AI infrastructure. “In effect, they’ve been protected from Trump’s protectionism.”
And at the same time, Trump’s other economic calamity—the Iran war—has been so self-evidently counterproductive that it distracts attention from his other economic blunders.
If Trump’s trade philosophy worked, then allowing giant economic drivers like AI manufacturing to short-circuit his tariffs would be a policy disaster. Instead, Trump has quietly let this status quo continue, both as a favor to the tech megadonors in his political coalition and to avoid interfering with the only thing driving the stock market into the stratosphere.
In Trump’s gimmicky, art-of-the-deal-addled mind, all this might add up to a “win.” Apparently, there’s even a Politico writer out there who’d agree. Fortunately, convincing the public will be a much taller order.
AROUND THE BULWARK
Canceling Military Exercises Hurts Us, Not Our Enemies... Since President Trump all but gutted the U.S.–South Korean maneuvers, MARK HERTLING asks if American forces in Korea will still be ready to “fight tonight.”
‘Negotiations’ Aren’t the Answer in Iran or Ukraine... “Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace, peace!’ But there is no peace”, writes BRYNN TANNEHILL.
Trump’s New AG Just Made a Stunning Admission on Meet the Press… WILL SALETAN takes on Kristen Welker’s Meet the Press interview with Todd Blanche, arguing that Blanche’s evasions on Justice Department independence, Trump’s influence over prosecutions, January 6th pardons, and a proposed compensation fund expose him as a loyalist ready to do the president’s bidding.
Frank Kendall and the Weapons of Tomorrow… On Shield of the Republic, ERIC EDELMAN and ELIOT COHEN discuss the administration’s stripping former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall of his security clearance for innocuous comments about Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.
The Bulwark’s GOOD FIGHT TOUR with Tim, Sarah, Sam, and JVL is coming to the Southeast in October. Tickets go on sale August 21. Bulwark+ members get early access via our presale starting August 18. Watch your inbox for details. Head to TheBulwark.com/Events for details and to get your tickets.
Quick Hits
KIM JONG UN-BELIEVABLE: The president posted this yesterday:
There are so many things that are stupid or wrong about this post—let’s see if we can find them all:
Trump habitually fails to distinguish between his own personal interests and those of the country, and maybe he doesn’t feel like North Korea is a threat to him. But just last year, then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Jeffrey Kruse told Congress that “North Korea is in its strongest strategic position in decades, possessing the military means to hold at risk U.S. forces and U.S. allies in Northeast Asia, while continuing to improve its capability to threaten the U.S. Homeland.” (Maybe that ballistic missile test they fired off a couple weeks ago was “unthreatening and respectful”?)
Trump is complaining about the costs of exercising our own forces, who are scheduled to train with about 18,000 South Korean troops.
Did last year’s version of the same exercise send a “totally inappropriate and hostile signal”?
Trump’s narration of the timeline is excellent. “I’ve hated these exercises forever, but I forgot to get them canceled and now of course it’s too late.”
“Somewhat unrelated”? Yeah, right.
ARE YOU REASSURED?: Finally, someone is paying some attention to the fate of the USS Lincoln besides the sailors onboard and their worried families back home. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper visited the ship, which has been at sea since November and is facing a morale and mental health crisis so extreme that at least one sailor has jumped overboard. Adm. Cooper urged perspective: “Of the U.S. Navy’s 11 active aircraft carriers, the Lincoln currently has among the lowest number of cases related to mental health.”
So, the others are worse?
I HAVE THE WORST F—ING ATTORNEYS: Todd Blanche, upon being sworn in as attorney general, promised that under his leadership, the Justice Department would not be independent of the president. On Meet the Press yesterday, he said: “Will I take the president of the United States’ view on something into consideration? Yes, of course.”
Trump would be better off if he hired better lawyers. As Paul Rosenzweig wrote in The Bulwark in December 2024,
Lavrenty Beria, the head of the Soviet secret police is (perhaps apocryphally) remembered for saying, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” That chilling phrase is the very definition of what, in American law, we call a vindictive prosecution—the claim that a prosecution is being brought as retribution against a person for acts that are unrelated to the crime being charged.
So now any federal defendant whom Trump has insulted, feuded with, denounced, demeaned, declared an enemy of the people, or even so much as looked at sideways can add to their defense the claim that they’re not being prosecuted because they government believes they committed a crime, but because they’re a personal or political enemy of the president. Here’s the history of Donald Trump disliking me, your honor, and here’s the attorney general promising to consider Trump’s views. The argument will be stronger in some cases than in others—but even still, it’s a freebie that no competent prosecutor would want to hand a defendant.
Cheap Shots
What other president has been lucky enough to find their major economic policies graded on a scale of “if it didn’t spark a once-in-a-century depression, it’s a win”?
I know you were asking this ironically Andrew, but the answer is zero.
The absolute way that so much of the media (not the Bulwark, thank God!) just allows Trump to be graded on a scale that wouldn’t even apply to a preschool toddler is ridiculous.
Great piece, even if it did spike my BP from rage at the double standards this morning.
Hello. You have reached Tim Coffey's "Morning Shots" autoresponder. You are receiving this message because Mr. Coffey does not have the mental bandwidth to address the topics in this morning's newsletter. However, Mr. Coffey would like to point out that when President Trump complains about the cost of military exercises with South Korea, the president is the same man who wants to spend billions on a "Trump" class battleship, billions on retrofitting the Ford class carrier with obsolete steam catapults, and hundreds of millions on a White House ballroom/Trump bunker. Mr. Coffey would also like to note that the president's "very good relationship" with North Korea's murderous dictator exists only his addled, demented mind. Lastly, Mr. Coffey would like to remind the MAGAe that when South Korea and Japan commence their nuclear weapons program as a result of the president fluffing North Korea's murderous dictator, it is because the MAGAe returned an amoral, weapons grade moron to the presidency, thus making the United States and the rest of the world less safe. You will receive no further comment from Mr. Coffey this morning. Thank you, and have a nice day.