It’s been just over a month since “liberation day” was announced by President Trump and things have zigzagged in different directions since then.

The last development in this saga, the truce that was achieved with China, seems to bring back some sort of normality to the folly that was unleashed by Trump himself. The reason behind this is no doubt the supremacy that the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seems to have established on the narrative over US tariff policy. There were two distinct rationales being used to justify the imposition of “reciprocal tariffs” by the US that were clearly in direct conflict with each other and championed by two separate groups within the Trump administration.

The first group, comprised of Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, Howard Lutnick the Commerce Secretary, and Stephen Miran, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, advocated that the trade deficits the US had been running for many years – imports being higher than exports – were a major problem that needed fixing. They claimed that the deficits were a result of unfair trade practices by other countries which were ripping the USA off. Making America great again meant the imposition of high tariffs to eliminate these imbalances with other countries. The way that the “reciprocal tariffs” were calculated and presented, flawed as it was, was exactly in line with this logic. What is more, soon after announcing the tariffs Trump told reporters, he would not reverse them until the trade deficits that the US runs with China, the EU and other nations disappeared. “Unless we solve that problem,” he said, “I’m not going to make a deal.”

Enter Bessent. Bessent was never a believer in the above theory. On many occasions he has been uncomfortable in defending the tariff policy put forward. Instead, faced with a more knowledgeable and anxious business crowd than the traditional MAGA loyalists, he has had to come up with a plausible economic rationale to justify the administration’s actions.

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This rationale was based on three pillars.

First, Bessent has been a strong believer in the need to maintain the value of the dollar. Even before the tariffs were announced, he was critical of the rumoured “Mar-a-Lago” Accord that was promoted by Stephen Miran, aimed at bringing the value of the dollar down as a way to combat the trade deficits. Bessent knew from history the dangers this loss of value in the dollar would have on increasing inflation as was the case in 1971 when the dollar abandoned its link to gold. He knew that, unlike 1971, the Federal Reserve would not bring interest rates down in the face of rising inflation, not only from the decline of the dollar but also from the effects of the new tariffs. Knowing Trump’s fixation on the need to reduce interest rates he no doubt used this argument to sway the president into supporting a strong dollar.

Second, Bessent had to find a reason to support the imposition of tariffs despite knowing that the supposed bringing back of manufacturing jobs back to the USA made little sense when the US economy was booming, with one of the lower unemployment rates not only worldwide, but also historically. The answer came in the solutions that countries everywhere were seeking, after the Covid pandemic exposed the supply chain breakages in the global economy. The on-shoring, friend-shoring or whatever-shoring that came with the onset of Covid, which dictated that other factors needed to be taken into account when deciding where production was made, came in useful for Bessent to stand up and argue that some manufacturing needed to be brought back to the USA, to safeguard allegedly strategic industries. The fact that such a goal had to be accompanied, not only by a targeted tariff policy (as opposed to the blanket tariffs Trump imposed) but also by a targeted industrial policy, was lost somewhere in translation.

Finally, Bessent had to tackle the problem that tariffs were not supposed to be a source of revenue to the US but were a way to pressure other countries to make concessions. This, among the three pillars, was the trickiest issue to handle, given the repeated public statements from the president himself to the contrary. On this, Bessent tried to keep a low profile, banking in effect on the general perception that Trump could not be taken at face value. The fact that he managed to come up with a truce with China this week, bringing tariffs down from the triple digits to a more reasonable 34 per cent on Chinese products, which were then postponed for 90 days, in effect leaving tariffs at 10 per cent as with all other countries was a testament to Bessent’s ability.

No doubt, Bessent was assisted by Trump’s attention shifting to other areas where he could attract the limelight.

First, he took credit for concluding a kind of trade deal with the UK, something that the UK has been trying to achieve since Brexit. The deal means much more to the UK than the US, but this did not matter, as it was largely symbolic (evidence was the non-involvement of Bessent in the deal) and is part of the strategic effort to distance the UK from the rest of Europe.

Then, Trump was happy to announce the release of the last American–Jewish hostage held by Hamas in Gaza. To achieve that, the US ignored Israel altogether and cut its own deal with Hamas, undermining Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the process.

On the Ukrainian issue, President Putin was not as obliging, refusing to meet President Zelenskiy on Thursday, and sending a lower-level delegation to begin the negotiating process between Russia and Ukraine, despite Trump saying he was ready to attend the meeting in Instanbul if the two leaders agreed to it.

Trump instead focused his attention on his visit to the Middle East, with Qatar announcing an order of up to 210 Boeing jets from the US. The fact that Qatar offered a gift to Trump in the form of a Boeing airplane worth $400 million to replace the existing Air Force One was somehow seen as simply doing business in the “Art of the deal” era.

But I have digressed. On the trade war, at least for now, Bessent seems to have navigated a path among the chaos, and this is welcome. The financial markets have reacted positively, and the dollar has regained some ground. Can anybody feel assured where this path will lead us? For those needing assurances there is none. Welcome to Trump world.