“We’d just pick off a few of the bad actors, so the others would go, whoa, and back off,” she said.

Bill Maher said he wouldn’t back off from future criticism of the president, but to those in Trump’s inner circle, it doesn’t matter.

After several days of spectacular losses, it responded with a record surge on Wednesday after Trump backed off the tariffs.

"It would be a mistake to think that China will back off and remove tariffs unilaterally," says Alfredo Montufar-Helu, a senior advisor to the China Center at The Conference Board think tank.

He had to back off, and the lead stayed with Verstappen.