Trump’s biggest U-turns before tariffs: Flip-flopper in chief?

US President Donald Trump's dramatic reversal on global trade tariffs sent markets reeling this week. Photo / Getty Images

US President Donald Trump, whose dramatic reversal on global trade tariffs sent markets reeling this week, is no stranger to the U-turn. Here are some notable examples.

Inconsistency on abortion

When it comes to the thorny issue of abortion rights, Trump has changed on his position over the past 25 years.

“I am very pro-choice,” he said in 1999, stating his opposition to banning abortion.

Trump changed his tune during the 2016 presidential campaign while courting the votes of evangelical Christians, and called for “some form of punishment” for women who seek abortion. In office, he is a staunch opponent of abortion.

TikTok, from hate to love?

At the end of his first term, Trump unsuccessfully tried to ban social media network TikTok, accusing the popular platform of siphoning American user data for Beijing’s benefit.

But on the campaign trail in 2024, while courting Gen Z votes, Trump said “I like TikTok” and declared “I’m going to save TikTok.”

He now says he is close to a deal for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer who would take it from its Chinese owner ByteDance to avoid it getting shut down in the United States.

Russian rollercoaster

During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, he advocated for better relations with Moscow, but that stance quietened as accusations arose around Russia’s election interference in his favour.

Since returning to the White House, Trump has engineered a sudden rapprochement with the Kremlin, calling Vladimir Putin in mid-February in an attempt to end the Ukraine war.

But recently Trump has also said he is “very angry, furious” with Putin over his approach to ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine.

A revolving door

Trump often lauds his new appointees before they quickly lose favour and he fires them like contestants on his reality show The Apprentice.

Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson was sacked as secretary of state in 2018, after months of tensions with Trump - and many others have met the same fate.

National Security Adviser John Bolton was appointed in April 2018 and fired in September 2019, going on to describe Trump as “unfit” to lead the world’s foremost power.

Hot and cold on China

During his 2016 campaign, Trump vowed to take China to task from “day one,” labelling Beijing as a “currency manipulator.”

Months after taking office, Trump hosted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and said the Chinese are “not currency manipulators”.

These days, as he pursues massive tariffs against the US’s main economic rival, he constantly accuses China of currency manipulation.

Covid contradictions

Trump downplayed the pandemic in its early days in 2020, mocking health measures to combat its spread.

It wasn’t until he was infected and hospitalised for three days in October 2020 that he lauded modern medicine and vaccines.

“I learned so much about the coronavirus,” Trump said on his return to the White House after treatment. “We have the best medicines in the world... and the vaccines are coming.”

-Agence France-Presse