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Donald Trump’s tremendous love

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What does Donald Trump talk about when he talks about love? For the man presents himself as being full of it. He is associated with a politics of grievance and retribution that has boiled over at times into violence, most infamously in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021. And yet no other president, or presidential candidate, has so wreathed himself in valentines.

In speeches and blast emails, Mr Trump romances his supporters with constant reminders of his love. Among those for whom he has declared his love over the years are “the Hispanics”, “the Saudis”, “the poorly educated” and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency. His heart often has reasons of which reason would appear to know nothing. Like Titania he has tumbled for the most improbable of creatures (“We fell in love,” he gushed of North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un). Like Rihanna he has found love in hopeless places, including the Soviet Union (“you could see it was a country where there was a lot of love”) and even in that crowd on January 6th (“There was a lot of love out there. There was tremendous love”).

Pretty much by definition, presidents are not normal people. But even by their abnormal standard Mr Trump is an unusual character. His detractors like to point out that he had a head start in life as the son of a millionaire real-estate developer. They may not give him enough credit, though, for how through daring, determination and a certain ethical flexibility he willed himself into becoming a billionaire, a flamboyant celebrity, a reality-television star and then the president—how, like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby, Donald Trump “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself”. His insistence on this conception overwhelmed the scoffers at his candidacy eight years ago, bulldozed most Republicans into believing he did not lose in 2020 and may now persuade Americans to return him to the White House.

Biographers of Mr Trump have recounted how, as he discovered he could dominate and bamboozle others, he acquired some contempt for them as well. Once he became known for his wealth people would claw at him for favours. He marvelled, as a candidate in 2015, how easy it was to woo voters with the slightest gesture.

Wayne Barrett, a New York journalist who was probably the closest student of Mr Trump’s rise, fall and fragile recovery into the early 1990s, writes in “Trump” that people who worked for the mogul longed for him to find love but “did not really believe he had the capacity for it.” Mr Barrett quotes one such person as saying Mr Trump was “unaware of his own tragedy” and then continues, “As they saw it, his deeply ingrained remoteness was so much a part of his unexamined life that he neither understood it nor regretted it.” When one friend, irritated by Mr Trump’s uninterest in his troubles, accused him of being a shallow person, he replied, “That’s one of my strengths.”

The Great Gatsby was laid low by love, but that seems to have little chance of undoing The Donald, as his first wife, Ivana Trump, called him. Outsiders can never know what really goes on inside a marriage, but journalists, lawyers and the participants themselves have rendered some of Mr Trump’s marriages more transparent than most. Ideals of love have not tended to predominate.

“If you don’t marry me you’ll ruin your life,” were the words with which Mr Trump proposed to Ivana, according to her book “Raising Trump”. “Continuing love and affection was not a material part” of their nuptial agreement, read a court filing from Mr Trump as the couple split up. “I was bored when she was walking down the aisle,” Mr Trump later recalled of Marla Maples, the woman for whom he left Ivana. “I kept thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’” Probably no Valentine’s Day card will ever invoke Mr Trump’s advice about how best to behave toward women: “You have to treat ’em like shit.”

Outside his family, Mr Trump did not express much love for the people who helped build his fortune. “Look at those losers,” he remarked to an associate as he watched people gambling in one of his Atlantic City casinos, according to “Confidence Man” by Maggie Haberman.

To Mr Trump, hate could be a virtue. Back in 1989, New York’s mayor, Ed Koch, urged citizens not to have rancour toward five black youths arrested for the rape of a white jogger in Central Park. Mr Trump, then beginning to dabble in politics, took out full-page ads in the four daily New York papers calling for reinstatement of the death penalty and declaring, “I want to hate these murderers and I always will.” The youths served years in prison, but even after they were exonerated Mr Trump would not recant, saying in 2014 that they did “not exactly have the pasts of angels”. (Hate can mean never having to say you’re sorry.)

As president in 2020, Mr Trump attended the National Prayer Breakfast, devoted that year to the theme of “loving your enemy”. “I don’t know if I agree,” he mused, when he stepped behind the lectern. He had recently been impeached for the first time and was not inclined to forgive people he thought of as enemies. “They have done everything possible to destroy us,” he said, “and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation.”

Say that you love me

Mr Trump’s love has limit and conditions. He seems to need to feel appreciated and admired, to feel loved, and then he will complete the transaction by declaring his own affection. “I’ll never stop loving you,” he vowed in a recent mass email seeking donations. “Why? Because you’ve always loved me!” That is a deal his supporters are eager to make. They have their own unmet needs for recognition and affirmation. They know their guy is not perfect; in fact, it seems probable that when their love swears he is made of truth they believe him even though they know he lies. They will not risk his love by doubting him. This codependence has become the strongest force in American politics.

Read more from Lexington, our columnist on American politics:
This is not a story about Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl (Feb 8th)
How to overcome the biggest obstacle to electric vehicles (Feb 1st)
Why America’s political parties are so bad at winning elections (Jan 25th)

Also: How the Lexington column got its name

Economics

Trump will ‘buckle under pressure’ if Europe bands together over tariffs: German economy minister

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BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 24: Robert Habeck, chancellor candidate of the German Greens Party, speaks to the media the day after German parliamentary elections on February 24, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. The Greens came in fourth place with 11.6% of the vote, down 2.9% from the previous election. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump will “buckle under pressure” and alter his tariff policies if Europe bands together, acting German economy minister Robert Habeck said Thursday.

“That is what I see, that Donald Trump will buckle under pressure, that he corrects his announcements under pressure, but the logical consequence is that he then also needs to feel the pressure,” he said during a press conference, according to a CNBC translation.

“And this pressure now needs to be unfolded, from Germany, from Europe in the alliance with other countries, and then we will see who is the stronger one in this arm wrestle,” Habeck said.

Elsewhere, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he believed the latest tariff decisions by Trump were “fundamentally wrong,” according to a CNBC translation.

The measures are an attack on the global trade order and will result in suffering for the global economy, Scholz said.

On Wednesday, Trump imposed 20% levies on the European Union, including on the bloc’s foremost economy Germany, as he signed a sweeping and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy.

Germany is widely regarded as one of the countries likely to be most impacted by Trump’s tariffs, given its heavy economic reliance on trade.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.

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Economics

The Trump train slows

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THESE DAYS are dire and dour for Democrats. But April 1st brought a brief reprieve—and not because of jokes. That was the day that the most expensive judicial election in American history in the battleground state of Wisconsin ended in a decisive triumph for the left-leaning candidate. It had drawn $100m of spending, including an estimated $25m from Elon Musk who also, perhaps unhelpfully, personally campaigned in the state. The same day, two special elections in Florida for vacant congressional seats took place in safe Republican districts. Although they did not win, Democrats improved their margins by 17 and 20 percentage points compared with the general elections held just five months ago. Cory Booker, a Democratic senator from New Jersey, staged a one-man protest on the floor of the Senate, excoriating President Donald Trump’s administration for 25 hours straight—a stunt, to be sure, but one that demonstrated proof of life in a party that supporters worried had gone limp.

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Economics

How did the U.S. arrive at its tariff figures?

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a “Make America Wealthy Again” trade announcement event in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Markets have turned their sights on how U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration arrived at the figures behind the sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports declared Wednesday, which sent global financial markets tumbling and sparked concerns worldwide.

Trump and the White House shared a series of charts on social media detailing the tariff rates they say other countries impose on the U.S. Those purported rates include the countries’ “Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers.”

An adjacent column shows the new U.S. tariff rates on each country, as well as the European Union.

Chart of reciprocal tariffs.

Courtesy: Donald Trump via Truth Social

Those rates are, in most cases, roughly half of what the Trump administration claims each country has “charged” the U.S. CNBC could not independently verify the U.S. administration’s data on these duties.

It didn’t take long for market observers to try and reverse engineer the formula — to confusing results. Many, including journalist and author James Surowiecki, said the U.S. appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at tariff rates for individual countries.

Such methodology doesn’t necessarily align with the conventional approach to calculate tariffs and would imply the U.S. would have only looked at the trade deficit in goods and ignored trade in services.

For instance, the U.S. claims that China charges a tariff of 67%. The U.S. ran a deficit of $295.4 billion with China in 2024, while imported goods were worth $438.9 billion, according to official data. When you divide $295.4 billion by $438.9 billion, the result is 67%! The same math checks out for Vietnam.

“The formula is about trade imbalances with the U.S. rather than reciprocal tariffs in the sense of tariff level or non-tariff level distortions. This makes it very difficult for Asian, particularly the poorer Asian countries, to meet US demand to reduce tariffs in the short-term as the benchmark is buying more American goods than they export to the U.S., ” according to Trinh Nguyen, senior economist of emerging Asia at Natixis.

“Given that U.S. goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power is lower for countries targeted with the highest levels of tariffs, such option is not optimal. Vietnam, for example, stands out in having the 4th largest trade surplus with the U.S., and has already lowered tariffs versus the U.S. ahead of tariff announcement without any reprieve,” Nguyen said.

The U.S. also appeared to have applied a 10% levy for regions where it is running a trade surplus.

"Absolutely nothing good coming out" of Trump tariff announcement, veteran economist Rosenberg says

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative laid out its approach on its website, which appeared somewhat similar to what cyber sleuths had already figured out, barring a few differences.

The U.S.T.R. also included estimates for the elasticity of imports to import prices—in other words, how sensitive demand for foreign goods is to prices—and the passthrough of higher tariffs into higher prices of imported goods.

“While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. If trade deficits are persistent because of tariff and non-tariff policies and fundamentals, then the tariff rate consistent with offsetting these policies and fundamentals is reciprocal and fair,” the website reads.

This screenshot of the U.S.T.R. webpage shows the methodology and formula that was used in greater detail:

A screenshot from the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Some analysts acknowledged that the U.S. government’s methodology could give it more wiggle room to reach an agreement.

“All I can say is that the opaqueness surrounding the tariff numbers may add some flexibility in making deals, but it could come at a cost to US credibility,” according to Rob Subbaraman, head of global macro research at Nomura.

 — CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this piece.

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