He vowed: "My policies will never change." He insisted: "Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something." He boasted: "I know what I'm doing." And at 9.33am on Wednesday, he entreated: "BE COOL. Everything is going to work out well." But less than four hours later, Donald Trump blinked. As the economic and political pressure became unbearable, the US president announced on social media that he would pause for 90 days higher trade tariffs for most countries, excluding China. It was a dramatic climbdown by a leader who has spent years cultivating the image of a strongman able to project indifference through every storm.