Some folks think the speed with which tariffs were laid onto Canada and Mexico and then delayed happened in a chaotic manner, with whipsaws in the mix. After all, shortly after President Donald Trump (R) announced the tariffs, US automaker managers called Susie Wiles, Trump’s Chief of Staff, and she supposedly assured them of carve-outs IAW existing trade treaties. Then Trump reiterated his tariff threat with no word of automotive carve-outs. Then agreements were made with Mexico and Canada that satisfied much of what Trump has wanted from those two nations, and he agreed to delay the tariff’s implementation. Or at least that’s what the newswriters’ imaginary “people familiar with” tell them. And all of that happened in just two days.

It’s certainly possible that the situation was a chaotic as newswriters claim.

There’s another interpretation, though.

This is just the Federal government, with a businessman in charge now better schooled in politics and the techniques of maneuvering politicians, moving at the speed of business.

In conjunction with that, keep in mind that those automobile makers assemble their vehicles in American- and Canada-domiciled factories from parts made in, or passing through, both Mexican and Canadian factories and middlemen. Whatever this administration does vis-à-vis cars and trucks, thus, would get back to those Mexican and Canadian companies and their governments.

Accordingly, a two-pronged approach: pass words back to those governments through their companies, and speak directly to those governments, with what amounts to a backdoor carrot and stick process that emphasizes the stick.

There’s this, too: the tariffs were delayed, not called off. It’s a clear move to see whether the Mexican and Canadian governments actually do what their President and Prime Minister have said they’d do.

Aside: It’s illustrative of what passes for news media today, that the news writers and news commenters (I hesitate to call them analysts) generally choose the most negative interpretation to tout, and never offer other, just as apparent, interpretations (and not just mine) with explanations of why they think those interpretations are not in play.

Another aside:

[T]he United Steelworkers, who lobbied for an oil exemption to protect their members working in refineries, decried the tariff action, saying that “lashing out at key allies like Canada is not the way forward.”

This from an organization that, like each of its brethren, feels perfectly free to lash out at businesses, threatening their existence with production-blocking strikes whenever they don’t get their own way.