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Opinion|Trump Is on a Path to Failure
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/opinion/trump-tariffs-catastrophe.html
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Ross Douthat
April 12, 2025
In May 2017, just a few months into the first Trump administration, I wrote a column arguing that his incapacity was so obvious and destructive that he should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.
This was a popular column, but its argument did not hold up well. Trump’s first-term White House remained abnormally chaotic, and Trump remained, well, himself — but relative to the initial months, his presidency stabilized sufficiently that the claim of incapacity and the call for constitutional intervention didn’t fit the facts. My column had been written in a spirit of “this can’t go on.” But it did go on — and more than that, it went on with better outcomes in economic and foreign policy than I had thought possible, to the point that within a few years of Joe Biden (who became a more exemplary 25th Amendment case!), voters were nostalgic for Trumpian results.
There have been many moments like that for observers of the Trump phenomenon — moments when it seemed his faults were leading to some irrevocable crash, or when it seemed he was finished politically forever. Time and again, those judgments have proved premature; time and again, Trump has tempted fate and lived to tell the tale.
Which is why, when he returned to office, I vowed to avoid premature declarations of catastrophe. I would criticize, but I wouldn’t act as though everything was irrecoverable for at least the first year.
This week has sorely tested that resolve. None of Trump’s first-term policies carried the comprehensive risks involved in his great trade war — the threat of recession at the very least, the potential threat to America’s global position and basic solvency as well. Even with the suspension of the country-by-country tariffs, the scale of the China trade war and the general uncertainty created by the Trump whipsaw portend economic pain without a clear path to a rebound.
