In less than three weeks, President Donald Trump has issued four sweeping tariff threats that, in normal times, would rattle investors, unnerve CEOs and send economists rushing to revise their growth forecasts for the targeted countries.
Instead, financial markets and C-suite executives have mostly shrugged off Trump’s latest warnings involving Iran’s trading partners, Greenland’s supporters, Canada and South Korea, seeing them as merely words intended to gain leverage or change behavior — nothing he’d actually carry out.
According to a new Bloomberg Economics analysis, it’s not quite that Trump always chickens out. More precisely, BE found, he only follows through about a quarter of the time. About 43% of threats were withdrawn — sometimes with a perceived win declared by Trump — or haven’t been imposed yet.
Bloomberg Economics reviewed 49 tariff threats he made or new trade investigations his administration initiated from November 2024 election to Sunday (the tally doesn’t include his newest target — South Korea). More than half of the threats haven’t been fully implemented, BE found.
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*Brendan Murray for Bloomberg News*
In less than three weeks, President Donald Trump has issued four sweeping tariff threats that, in normal times, would rattle investors, unnerve CEOs and send economists rushing to revise their growth forecasts for the targeted countries.
Instead, financial markets and C-suite executives have mostly shrugged off Trump’s latest warnings involving Iran’s trading partners, Greenland’s supporters, Canada and South Korea, seeing them as merely words intended to gain leverage or change behavior — nothing he’d actually carry out.
According to a new Bloomberg Economics analysis, it’s not quite that Trump always chickens out. More precisely, BE found, he only follows through about a quarter of the time. About 43% of threats were withdrawn — sometimes with a perceived win declared by Trump — or haven’t been imposed yet.
Chart: [Breaking Down 49 Trump Tariff Threats Since November 2024](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fbreaking-down-49-trump-tariff-threats-since-november-2024-v0-alswun4jhvfg1.png%3Fwidth%3D1080%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D1d6531893f76e63f7628d98e3a6910fcd228a327)
Bloomberg Economics reviewed 49 tariff threats he made or new trade investigations his administration initiated from November 2024 election to Sunday (the tally doesn’t include his newest target — South Korea). More than half of the threats haven’t been fully implemented, BE found.
[Read the full story here.](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-27/bluffing-or-not-counting-trump-s-tariff-threats-versus-actions?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc2OTUxMTI5MywiZXhwIjoxNzcwMTE2MDkzLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUOUlKMjJLSkg2VjcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJEMzU0MUJFQjhBQUY0QkUwQkFBOUQzNkI3QjlCRjI4OCJ9.Ga-DvkYEzTFdTIrzkxs-Lu8fLLkiKqKShv5fghnel6M)
If the threat works, why carry it out always?
It’s meant to be coercive to gain a behavior change. Once you get what you want, you don’t need to tariff