Since before President Trump took office in January 2025, the strategic plan of the British, as stated in their City of London publications, such as The Economist and the Financial Times, has been to try to use the financial crisis, and even to fan the flames if needed, to try to get Trump under their control. Their inside man in the Trump cabinet to channel the voice of “The Market”—i.e., the City of London—is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who they think has done a pretty good job so far.
The Financial Times went so far as to headline an April 9 article “Why Did Donald Trump Buckle?”—referring to Trump’s decision to reverse course and announce a 90-day pause in most tariffs he had threatened to impose, with the notable exception of China. “Donald Trump played chicken with the markets for a week,” the FT gloated. “But by Wednesday [April 9] the multi-front trade war he launched on the world on April 2 with much fanfare had become unsustainable economically, financially and politically for the U.S. president…. The U-turn represented a sobering setback for a president who said he was ‘liberating’ Americans from what he claimed was an unfair global trade system that, he suggested, he alone had the courage to reorder. His decision to cave, at least partially, is a sign that Trump is still susceptible to a backlash from investors, lawmakers and donors—even on one of his signature policy promises.”