Trump's advisors got tied up in knots over his tariff obsession

Rarely has America seen such a spectacle of confusion over policy

- NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.

President Donald Trump's economic team fiddled while his tariff announcements caused markets to melt down, arguing that there was a grand plan to re-order global trade for the benefit of Americans. Yet, in ignoring the anxieties of corporate leaders, members of both parties and voters, they showed themselves to be out of step and unable to lead the president down a sound path, economically and politically. His April 9 announcement of a 90-day 'pause' on most of those levies has further eroded the team's credibility.

When Trump's economic advisors were initially announced, even his critics praised his choices as mainstream figures unlikely to spook markets.

Now there is a real question of whether any are independent and secure enough to stand up to him. "This is a moment of testing for the president's advisors," former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said. "The intellectually honest ones know that [Trump's belief in tariffs] reflects a presidential 40-year fixation, not any kind of proven economic theory."

They failed the test.