Trumped By Treasuries, Not Protest

There is now a level of opposition in US that the Trump administration doesn’t seem to know how to respond to. Trump surrogates strained to defend his disastrous tariffs in the face of a cratering stock market. And instead of nervous investors seeking safety in US Treasury bonds, they started selling these too. It’s the bond market red flag that seems to have finally got to Trump, causing him to back down.He now claims that he will wait another three months before putting most of the tariffs in place. It’s hard to trust this, after so much vacillation. The question now is whether broad-based opposition to Trump will keep up. Is his retreat on tariffs strategic, or the first sign of a rout?Over the weekend, millions of Americans took to the streets in more than a thousand separate ‘Hands Off�?protests. There have been precursors in anti-DOGE rallies held at Tesla dealerships. It was the size of the protests that was the surprise, as the scattershot nature of Trump’s first months in office starts to catch up with him.Though Trump was always going to hurt someone, his supporters didn’t think they’d be the ones suffering. Just as they started to feel this, Trump backed down from his hard line on tariffs.His first term saw the largest protest marches in US history to date �?women’s marches, marches for science, and Black Lives Matter protests. But those were focused on specific grievances, while the demands of the Hands Off marches have been more varied.Sponsored by more than 150 different groups, they oppose every aspect of the administration �?gutting of federal programmes, tariffs, projected cuts to Social Security and Medicaid. The administration might actually have been able to sell the public on some tariffs �?there was little resistance to the targeted tariffs of the first Trump term. But the ridiculous, poorly thought-out tariff proposal he put forward on April 2 was too much even for his supporters.Chaotic as the many tariff U-turns have been, these are of a piece with the cavalcade of often illegal policy announcements that has left the opposition reeling. Rather than concentrate on one message, the opposition has been forced to try and keep up with Trump, barely putting together a response to one assault before the next one starts.That’s been an advantage for Trump, but the protests show the danger of such a strategy. Attacks on one group �?immigrants, trans people, universities �?might be overlooked by others. Attacks on many groups simultaneously, combined with higher prices, risk mobilising everyone.While the president and Republicans have promised not to cut Social Security �?which sends monthly cheques to more than 70mn Americans �?or Medicaid �?which provides health insurance to almost 80mn �?people who depend on these programmes aren’t buying it.Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk have claimed that there is substantial Social Security and Medicaid fraud �?though all of their evidence to date has come from misunderstandings of how the system works. These claims of fraud are important, because you could, in theory, cut spending by ending fraud and waste without cutting benefits.Cuts to programmes that help poor people, immigrants, minorities, women were expected, and politically, benefits that go to these kinds of groups are expendable. But when middle class people feel they’re being targeted by cuts, or see increased prices due to tariff chaos, it becomes harder to ignore the damage.Social Security might seem like it’s just a programme for the elderly poor. It’s not. Most Americans don’t have enough money to comfortably retire, and wind up depending on it as a supplement.Poorly tested software updates to the programme, pushed by DOGE, have already led to panic among retirees. Now they can’t access their benefits online. At the same time, staffing cuts mean their calls are on hold for hours and help centres they would otherwise have visited are closed down.Similarly, Medicaid cuts may be targeted at the poor but it pays for about half of all long-term care in US. Consider for example that nursing home care is enormously expensive, averaging about $70,000 a year, and isn’t covered by health insurance. As such, Americans who need such care and can’t afford it are advised to bankrupt themselves, spending or giving away all their assets until they’re considered poor enough to get Medicaid.Higher prices due to tariffs and a collapsing stock market might make the process of running out of money easier, but that’s hardly something people are happy about.Until now, Trump has been shielded by Congressional Republicans unwilling to risk his ire. At any point, Congress could reverse DOGE’s cuts or roll back his tariffs, but Republican members have been resigned to the idea that their own supporters seem to like Trump’s policies.Only in the last few days have there been any cracks in this façade, with Republican Senators pushing a bill that would rescind the president’s authority to set tariffs, an effort mostly mooted when Trump mostly rescinded his proposal for high tariffs, postponing them (again) after repeatedly promising that he wouldn’t (this time).In the first term, tariffs, like most of Trump’s actions, were narrowly targeted, limiting the opportunities for widespread resistance. Black people or people concerned with climate change or immigration advocates might march, but there wasn’t the sort of general mobilisation we’ve seen in the past weeks.More than 60% of Americans own stocks. As their value was plummeting due to Trump’s tariffs, he was spending the weekend golfing. On his flight back to Washington, what he repeatedly stressed to reporters was that he had won his match. But the April 9 U-turn suggests the cries of investors if not protesters finally got through.The writer teaches at Fairleigh Dickinson University, US