Andrew Ross Sorkin

And they're the only people he seems to be willing to listen to.

The through line in my reporting about Trump is simply leverage.

It's how can he get leverage over somebody else?

It's not about – and the relationship is always going to be transactional.

He would argue to you, I think, if we were sitting at this table with the president, that all of these quote-unquote relationships, these friendships, these special relationships we've had with European countries was never really a relationship at all.

He would say we were actually paying them all off to be our friends, frankly, and that that was our leverage.

if we had any leverage with them.

And I think now he's saying we have leverage in a different way, which is that we're basically going to tariff them.

My only point is that I think what he's looking at are the numbers, not that anybody's doing anything in a kumbaya way for the United States, nor that the United States should be doing kumbaya way things for them.

And we will see whether we really have leverage or not.

And I think that's that is the ultimate question.

And I do not think we know.

And I will say when it comes to China, I think ultimately it's going to be very hard for us to have demonstrable leverage with them, given their size and their scale.

And the fact that I think President Xi is just watching this whole thing.

And I imagine laughing to some degree because he sees the president come out and decides announced some crazy thing.

tariff number.

And then the market goes crazy.

And what happens?

He steps down, steps away from it.

Because leverage towards control, leverage.