In Trump’s version, it is more like exaggerating potential actions so that the eventual lesser actions seem reasonable. It is a case of threatening Armageddon but only implementing partial destruction, which seems acceptable in light of the original over-the-top threat.
US President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on any country that supports a currency to replace the US dollar marks the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive moves against global trade and China.
One can’t help but wonder if Trump has spent some of the last few years reading The Thirty-Six Stratagems, a Chinese essay used to illustrate a series of stratagems used in politics, war and civil interaction. He appears particularly taken with Strategy 27, where you feign madness while remaining perfectly sane. The aim is to deceive your opponent into underestimating you, leading to overconfidence and a lapse in their guard — at which point you strike.
