We shall see what we shall see- if the spin doesn't make us too dizzy

It has long been my aspiration, despite my strong conviction that Donald Trump is personally unfit for the office he holds, is an authoritarian who holds the values of the Constitution in contempt, and has little if any idea what in the world that he is doing, to praise him when he does something good as loudly as I criticize him... well, most of the time.

It seems that at least as regards the EU, he's backing off his virtual declaration of economic war, and entered into an agreement with the other side not to impose new tariffs on each other and to begin talks on trade.

Good. Let his praises be sung, therefore.

We will see whether this actually means that a trade war with Europe will be avoided rather than merely delayed and whether these negotiations will result in any actual improvement in our situation as regards trade with the EU. Of course, if it doesn't, I have no doubt that Mr. Trump and his supporters will not let that stop them from not only claiming otherwise but crowing about the hallucinatory victory loudly, adding it to the list of imaginary achievements which seem to be pretty much the only kind of which the Trump administration is capable.

As always, I will be willing to happily eat crow if I am wrong- if the talks do achieve something significant and the crisis Mr. Trump's aggressive policy has provoked actually yields results beneficial to the United States. I probably won't be so generous if, as I expect, he is in essence forced to back down entirely and accept defeat without admitting it, trying to cover up that failure by merely claiming another illusory victory, having learned the hard way that his protectionist approach was a mistake but, being a narcissist, unable to admit to ever being wrong. But even then, if he actually learns something from the mistake, that's a good thing, and we should recognize it even if he can't bring himself to.

He'll probably be doing that sort of thing a great deal in his remaining two years in office. But I'm beginning to think that maybe he won't ruin the booming economy after all, and will continue to try- even though he's fooling nobody but himself- to take credit for his predecessor's economic achievements right up until the voters turn him out of office and we start having to deal with another Democratic president who is only ideologically unfit for the job.

In the meantime, he'll continue to fool himself and his followers, but nobody else, by insisting that backing down is winning, that surrender is victory, that he's actually accomplishing very much and that he's been vindicated rather than discredited by events.