Finally, the Trump regime has met its match | Robert Reich

It was bound to happen.

Encouraged by the ease with which many big US institutions caved in to their demands, the Trump regime – that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Donald Trump (JD Vance, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and RFK Jr) along with the child king himself – have overreached.

They’ve dared China, Harvard and the supreme court to blink.

But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked – and they won’t.

China not only refused to back down when the Trump regime threatened it with huge tariffs, but also retaliated with huge tariffs of its own, plus a freeze on the export of rare-earth elements that the US’s high-tech and defense industries depend on.

Harvard also pointedly defied the regime, issuing a clear rebuke to its attempt to interfere with academic freedom.

The supreme court – in a rare unanimous decision – ordered Trump to facilitate the return of a legal US resident wrongly deported to a dangerous prison in El Salvador, without any criminal charges.

But the White House was defiant. On Monday, both Trump officials and El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said they could not return Kilmar Ábrego García.

“Of course, I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said when asked. Trump sat by his side with a smile on his face. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, joined in the cruel imitation of justice: “That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him.”

What’s next?

I suspect the testosterone-poisoned lackeys around King Trump are urging him to hit back even harder, escalating their confrontations with China, Harvard and the supreme court. They view these showdowns as ultimate tests of the regime’s strength.

Think of it – they must be telling themselves and their boss – what prizes! If they defeat China, they have brought the world’s other economic powerhouse to its knees!

If they defeat Harvard University, they have been victorious over the world’s intellectual powerhouse!

If they defeat the supreme court, they have conquered the entire US government!

Win these battles and no one will ever again doubt the power and resolve of the Trump regime!

Hopefully, Trump is smarter than this. He knows these three institutions will not back down. They are rich and powerful enough to defy Trump’s escalating threats and demands. They cannot and will not cower.

If Trump escalates his wars against them, they’ll become even stronger in the eyes of their supporters and constituents, and much of the world.

The American people will see that Trump is actually a blowhard with no real power at all.

So if he’s smart, Trump will try to de-escalate these three conflicts.

He’s already hinted at an off-ramp with China. He will probably find some way to claim that Harvard has capitulated to his demands. He will avoid a showdown with the supreme court.

But keep a watch on these three. They are Trump’s most formidable foes. If he doesn’t understand this and instead succumbs to the urges of his power-crazed lackeys, the Trump regime’s days will in effect be over before it even completes the first hundred of them.

• Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com