Who says Trump is not a politician? He is a born politician.
Politicians don’t reverse statements like Trump does.
His whole background is business, and unless and until you have dealt with a high end business person, you may not understand the tactic (and not all employ it, either). The tactic is to keep you off your game; Trump flips back and forth - almost entirely on matters that are not “at play” to keep you off your feet during negotiations.
Look at his negotiating with North Korea. He constantly talked up how great Kim Jong-Un was; but Trump never waivered on his push to get NK to step off the nuclear route. From the get-go, Trump was clear that he would not tolerate continued work on missiles, including a comment about what would happen if NK stepped over the line with an attack; yet he “gave” NK “face” by stepping into NK. That is not a politician as they would keep their intentions far more cloaked in rhetoric, and not a single President has even contemplated doing any such “face” move.
Look also at his negotiations over NATO. He played the same process, praising NATO for what it could do, and being crystal clear that if they did not pick up their $$ contributions that there were going to be some very unlikeable results. He really angered government leaders over that - but they stepped up the contributions. They were used to the “nice” negotiation style, but they clearly understood that "nice’ was not on the table, nor was it going to be the way matters moved, either forward or backward.
Ever Since Nixon made his overtures to China, every president since then failed to see, or if seeing, failed to acknowledge that bringing China into the WTO would not and did not defang the Communist government, and failed to react to the increasing grasp China has been making around the world. Both people (stockholders) and businesses were making money hand over fist, and we were sinking deeper and deeper into reliance on a country which had no intention of “playing nice” - and if you doubt that, look at how beholden we were to them in critical pharmaceuticals; at one point during negotiations, they made a not entirely veiled reference to our need, for example, of insulin. Trump saw two things: jobs had been lost by the middle class trained workers, and we were in an entirely untenable position in terms of supplies.
And then there is Joe “I don’t know anything about my son’s business deals”.
Per an old Chinese curse: “You should live in interesting times.”
It is going to get interesting.
