The Trump administration runs on 90 days at a time. Then repeats.

Boston Globe

6 days ago

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It's all part of the administration's promised '90 Deals in 90 Days' as part of its broader trade offensive. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already acknowledged the goal won't be met. Still, the phrase stuck.
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Because that's the pattern: Set a bold 90-day window. Talk tough. Trigger headlines. Then walk it back.
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No case illustrates that better than the TikTok saga. On his first day back in office in January, Trump ordered TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app's US operations within 90 days or face a nationwide ban. But when the deadline arrived in April, no sale had occurred. The administration extended it. In June, they extended it again. The new cutoff is now Sept. 17, though nothing suggests it will be final. (And remember this was after TikTok was given a year to find a new buyer after a bipartisan law required it during the Biden administration.)
It's the same story across multiple executive orders. Trump paused most US foreign aid for 90 days in January. But when the deadline approached, there were some exemptions, but the pause was just extended, and now it's tied up in the courts. Refugee admissions were paused for 90 days, and when the clock ran out, the pause was simply extended with little attention. It's now basically an indefinite suspension.
Even more technical executive orders follow the same script. One issued this spring gave the Food and Drug Administration
Trump also used a 90-day window to target a program that allows international students to work temporarily in the US after college graduation. His order directed the Department of Education to rewrite foreign student reporting rules within 90 days, a move critics saw as part of a broader campaign to chill legal immigration through red tape. Trump also attempted to pause all student visas for international
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And of course, there's the original 90-day 'Muslim travel ban' from Trump's first term. It barred entry from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days. That order sparked mass protests and was quickly blocked by the courts. After several rewrites, a scaled-down version eventually survived Supreme Court review.
Not all of Trump's deadlines are 90 days long. Consider the one tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill.
On June 2,
Deadlines aren't inherently bad. They can force decisions and structure debate. For a second term, lame-duck president who loses power every day, deadlines are also a mechanism to force action against those who wish to just run out the clock on his remaining days in power. But in Trump's hands, they've become something else: a storytelling device. Each 90-day clock sets the stage, escalates tension, and culminates in a familiar twist. Then, of course, the deadline gets extended, the stakes get repackaged, and the next countdown begins.
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As for next week's tariffs, which could tank the stock market just like before his 90-day pause, Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday that he doesn't plan to extend the deadline
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.