San José, CA – Once again, President Trump backed off in his trade war. On Tuesday, April 22, President Trump said that he would not fire Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, and that the current 145% tariffs are “not sustainable”. This led to a rally in U.S. stocks and bonds, and the U.S. dollar rose as investors showed signs of relief.

This is the third time that Trump has backed off after CEOs yanked at his leash. First it was the suspension for 90 days of Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” on the world following comments by the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, the country’s biggest bank, Jamie Dimon. Next came the exemption for cell phones and computers from the 145% tariffs on Chinese imports after a talk with Apple CEO Tim Cook. This time it was a meeting with the CEOs of Target, Walmart and Home Depot that led to the latest softening of Trump’s stance and hints from his administration that he will lower tariffs against China.

Trump is also finding it hard to make deals with other countries. After strongly hinting that a deal was being done with Japan, one of the United States’ foreign policy and military partners, nothing concrete came out of U.S. meeting with Japanese trade officials. One problem, according to a former U.S. trade official, is that the U.S. side could not state what they wanted from Japan. Another problem was that Trump administration is trying to get other countries to limit their trade with China, despite China being Japan’s largest trading partner. In fact, almost all countries in the world, with the exception of those in western Europe, North America, Central America, and the northern part of South America, trade more with China than the United States.

The problem is that while Trump attacks other countries for “taking advantage” of the United States and stealing jobs from American workers, it is in fact U.S. corporations that have been off-shoring their jobs for decades. Just this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chevron, Exxon, and other U.S. oil companies are offshoring more engineering and other skilled work to India.

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