Doubts grow over decision-making in the White House

 

Washington and New York. President Donald Trump's decision to suspend most of the 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada after imposing them on Tuesday has once again raised questions about his mysterious decision-making, who influences them (and who doesn't), and whether there is a coherent policy or whether Mexico and many other countries must suffer the whims of an unpredictable man who now leads the most powerful country on the planet.

Obviously, the final decision-maker is Trump, supposedly with the assistance of his cabinet and closest advisors. But as Mexico, Canada, Panama, Ukraine, much of Europe, and others have discovered, establishing good relations with his cabinet and others supposedly close to the president doesn't always lead to good or expected results. Furthermore, there is no consensus within the administration itself, with a group of advisors and secretaries with different priorities and interests, even though they all know full well that to maintain access and influence, they must subordinate themselves to their boss.

This was evident last week when, just days before March 4, the date the president's threatened tariffs were set to take effect, Mexican Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente traveled to Washington leading a delegation of senior officials to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other counterparts. All expressed the meeting as very positive, and Rubio issued a statement thanking Mexico for sending more troops to the shared border, the surrender of 29 drug traffickers, and the actions taken against the flow of fentanyl.