His way: Trump brushes off trade chaos with defiance and golf

by Danny KEMP

Donald Trump hit the golf course ahead of a candlelight dinner Friday despite global turmoil over his tariff plans -- underscoring his desire to do things his way in an increasingly hardline second term.

As he spent a long weekend at his Florida getaway, the 78-year-old US president was increasingly defiant even as markets plunged, insisting it was a "great time to get rich."

And as he punishes America's trade rivals, Trump is also hitting out at perceived political opponents at home, purging his national security team at the apparent urging of a far-right conspiracy theorist.

ALSO READ: 'We’ve made a mistake': Trump’s trade war sends GOP into frenzy

"He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore," The Washington Post quoted a White House official as saying.

Trump relished being the boss in his first term as president too, but since his return to the White House he has appeared more unbowed than ever in the face of criticism.

Less than 24 hours after his world-shaking tariff announcement, and as markets were still plunging into the red, Trump headed to Florida for dinner on Thursday at Trump National Doral golf club.

The club is hosting an event this weekend by the Saudi-owned LIV Golf tour, for which Trump is trying to broker a merger with the PGA tour.

Television footage showed Trump, wearing a read "Make America Great Again" hat, being driven in a golf cart after arriving on his Marine One helicopter.

"What a disgrace," said the Republicans Against Trump group in a post on X sharing the footage, noting that it came as "the market is crashing, a recession is looming, and the country is more isolated than ever."

On Friday morning Trump then headed to another of his golf courses near his grand Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, just as US markets were opening for a second day's bloodbath.

"This is a great time to get rich," he declared in a social media post shortly before heading to the course, adding that "my policies will never change."

- 'Fired' -

Democrats criticized Trump for missing the return ceremony on Friday for four US troops killed during an exercise in Lithuania.

As battered US markets close, Trump will be attending a "MAGA Inc Candelight Dinner" on Friday night at Mar-a-Lago, according to the White House.

Trump is due to speak at the dinner and tickets cost $1 million each, CBS News reported, with the funds going towards MAGA Inc, a pro-Trump so-called "Super PAC" -- an entity used for political funding.

The gilded trappings of Trump's weekend come amid growing fears that the tariffs may spark a recession and tank his promises to foster a new "Golden Age" for the US economy.

"The irony is that while everyone but the super-rich will feel pain, his base of blue collar, middle-income whites will feel the most pain," Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, told AFP.

Trump made the final decision on his strategy at the last minute after a "ping pong match" between officials trying to meld apparently contradictory goals, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The first rumblings of Republican dissent have already started.

Senator Ted Cruz -- who fought a bitter battle with Trump for the 2016 Republican nomination -- said on his podcast that if there is a recession, next year's US midterm elections "in all likelihood politically, would be a bloodbath."

But Trump's allies say that he should be left to be in charge.

"Let Donald Trump run the global economy. He knows what he's doing," Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary and major cheerleader for the president, said on Thursday.

Trump's tariffs gamble is also in tune with a growing sense that he wants to be the sole captain of a ship where everyone is loyal.

Trump on Thursday fired National Security Agency chief Timothy Haugh, his deputy and other senior national security officials following an intervention by right-wing conspiracist Laura Loomer.

Both NSA officials were appointed by Trump's predecessor as president, Joe Biden.

Loomer, who is known for claiming that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, said on X that Haugh and Noble "have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired."