HATE OR GROWTH?:

The business community and its campaign donations represent vital Republican assets. The top priority of corporate executives -- the December 2017 tax-cut -- stands as the only major legislative accomplishment Trump and the GOP Congress delivered.

But for its votes, the 21st century GOP increasingly depends on working-class whites without big stock portfolios or high tax liabilities. Instead of material benefits, Trump offers those voters the emotional satisfaction of giving voice to their fears and frustrations.

His bombast on an immigrant "invasion," and harsh border policies in the name of stopping it, serve that purpose. So does his bluster on trade.

In 2016, Trump won Rust Belt battlegrounds by promising to fight the scourge of unfair competition from China and other countries. "This American carnage stops right here," he declared in his 2017 inaugural.

It has not stopped. But tariffs, which Trump can impose without the consent of Congress, let him portray himself as punching back toward that goal.

Tariff punches have hurt China by dampening demand for its exports. They have also hurt Trump's own supporters, especially in agricultural states whose farm exports China has stopped buying.

Those losses have been so acute that Trump has offset them with direct government payouts to farmers. He has pretended other losses -- from dampened business investment and increased consumer prices -- don't exist at all.

In backing down from the next round on Tuesday, however, Trump surrendered the pretense that only China bears the costs. He did it, Trump acknowledged, to protect American Christmas shoppers.

Welcome as it was to business leaders, that retreat underscored the political weak link of Trump's approach. It's hard to campaign simultaneously as a business-friendly dealmaker and a bare-knuckled battler for the working class.

"Trump caved," Fox News personality Laura Ingraham tweeted about the tariff delay.

Tweet   @brothersjudd