Tariffs, Houthis, Musk, and golf: Trump's weekends at Mar-a-Lago always a firehose of news

USA Today

22-05-2025

Tariffs, Houthis, Musk, and golf: Trump's weekends at Mar-a-Lago always a firehose of news Trump's second presidency has been a seesaw of milestones — from imposing tariffs to military action — and the swings have started or played out during the time he has spent at the Winter White House.
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Trump first 100 days: What President has done from Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach
Trump News: President spent 31 of his first 100 days in office at Mar-a-Lago, reinforcing Palm Beach as his political base during his second term.
The Palm Beach Post
President Donald Trump's second first 100 days included more trips and days at Mar-a-Lago than in his prior term eight years ago, and the time he spent at his Palm Beach was just as historic.
All told, the president traveled to his Palm Beach County residence and golf clubs nine times, spending all or part of 31 days through April 29. The president then spent another four days at his club May 1-4.
Trump's second presidency, through the first 100 days, was a seesaw of milestones — from imposing tariffs to military action — and the swings have started or played out during the time he has spent at the Winter White House.
"You think about past presidents that have done momentous things outside the White House," said Wesley Borucki, associate professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University. "That is kind of interesting having an alternative White House of sorts here."
As was the case during the 30-plus trips he made to the Winter White House in his first term, the visits to his adopted home county since Jan. 20 have not been isolated news events but interwoven with the political narratives that have traveled with him to and from Palm Beach County.
As was the case with the Houthis, and an offer a luxury plane from Qatar, which Trump reportedly toured during a Palm Beach visit, the news sometimes started during a visit to his adopted home county.
Trump's tariffs, yes and no, definitely and maybe
On his first sojourn to his Palm Beach club, in early February, Trump fired the first salvo in what would become a global trade war.
He declared tariffs on the United States' North American neighbors, Canada and Mexico, would be imposed at the start of February. Those were later postponed, then partially implemented.
This term, the administration's signature economic issue has been a campaign to reorder global trading networks by imposing high-cost tariffs on products imported into the United States. Trump's desire to charge historically high global duties on imports into the United States and his decision to pause those efforts have been a running theme during his visits to South Florida.
On a visit in mid-February, Trump issued an executive order to open up timber and logging across U.S. federal woodlands to lessen what he said was a "national security" threat from depending on imported wood products. That drew a scoff from Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, during an April interview.
"For god's sakes, under no reasonable definition is the timber industry critical for national security," said Alden. "These arguments are very slippery and can end up with a lot of protectionist abuses."
Trump's seventh visit started a day after his "Liberation Day" tariff announcement and drew scrutiny in part by the juxtaposition of the president at his golf clubs while the stock and bond markets were in turmoil.
Despite the pushback and early reports of backpedaling, Trump insisted he remained steadfast. In a post on his social media platform, Trump insisted, "NOBODY is getting 'off the hook' for the unfair Trade Balances, and Non Monetary Tariff Barriers, that other Countries have used against us, especially not China which, by far, treats us the worst!"
Attack on Houthis and Signal chat
In mid-March, the president announced from Palm Beach County that the U.S. forces had launched strikes against Houthi factions committing violent acts of piracy on maritime shipping.
At the time, Trump's March 15 missive on TruthSocial barely broke through the news cycle. Still, the Houthi action soon became the source of a classified secrets scandal.
That happened after it was revealed that the editor of the decidedly Trump-critical Atlantic magazine had been included on a Signal chat text group in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Floridians Marco Rubio, secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the then-national security adviser, had discussed the details of the military mission. Waltz, a former congressman from northeast Florida, eventually was removed from the White House national security post and nominated to serve as the U.S. representative at the United Nations.
On May 6, Trump said attacks on Houthi factions in Yemen were suspended because the militants had "capitulated" and 'don't want to fight anymore.'
Other international efforts played out during weekends at Mar-a-Lago.
In mid-April, Trump announced that fellow billionaire and Palm Beach County real estate investor Steven Witkoff and the U.S. ambassador to Oman, Ana Escrogima, had met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The talks in Muscat, Trump wrote, had been hosted by Omani Foreign Minister Said Badr.
"The discussions were very positive and constructive, and the United States deeply thanks the Sultanate of Oman for its support of this initiative," Trump wrote. "Special Envoy Witkoff underscored to Dr. Araghchi that he had instructions from President Trump to resolve our two nations' differences through dialogue and diplomacy, if that is possible."
The discussions were to continue in May as the administration focuses on preventing, as Trump demands and as other U.S. presidents have sought, to keep Tehran from access to nuclear weapons.
Golf has been a staple for Trump
Trump's first-term White House press handlers were reticent to discuss the president's time at his golf club. But in this term, the president has been unabashed about revealing he had played golf, and with whom.
He has played with golfing legends Tiger Woods and Gary Player, the president of Finland and Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and attended a dinner while the LIV tournament was held at his Doral resort near Miami. He has also boasted that he had won several club championships at his courses.
Elon Musk: DOGE chief back at Tesla, Rubio role broadens
The world's richest man was a frequent guest during Trump's early stays in the Winter White House after surging as a MAGA darling in the late stages of the campaign and throughout the transition.
But at the end of the 100 days, Musk's work with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency that targeted federal spending, was mixed at best. And it was clear Musk's time as a special government employee, a temporary designation, was nearly up.
How much red ink has been removed from the deficit is open to debate, but decidedly much less than the $2 trillion Musk promised while campaigning for Trump last fall.
Also not debatable is that Musk became a lightning rod — and a deeply unpopular persona — to the extent that sales and share prices at his Tesla electric auto company suffered mightily.
Nationwide protests were held at Tesla showrooms, including in Palm Beach County while Musk and Trump were in town. One of those, in West Palm Beach, became newsworthy when a motorist allegedly sought to drive into the crowd of demonstrators.
A sharp disagreement over federal staffing is said to have been the trigger in a reportedly fiery argument between Musk and Rubio during a White House meeting, and the two men met with Trump at a Mar-a-Lago dinner a few days later, on March 2.
As Musk phased out in the spring, Rubio's role in the administration broadened. On May 1, Trump announced that Waltz would be moved to the United Nations and Rubio would assume the duties of national security adviser.
A person with knowledge of White House personnel moves said Rubio's stock with Trump has risen, owing in part to the president being impressed with the former Florida U.S. senator's smarts, something Trump critic and one-time aide John Bolton told The Palm Beach Post in an interview in 2024.
Trump and popular culture
Political pundits have long credited Trump's fandom in American sports for winning over a pivotal segment of voters, those so-called "low propensity" ones who are not necessarily as engaged in politics. They see Trump as relatable because he shares their interests and passions, according to some analysis.
Maybe, maybe not, but Trump's Winter White House forays have included excursions to the Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and a UFC fight in Miami.
He also signed orders to set English as the country's "official language" and banned the use of paper straws — plus called for banned baseball legend Pete Rose to be included in the sport's hall of fame in a social media post.
The second hundred days?
Trump kicked off his second 100 days with his 10th visit to Mar-a-Lago where, on May 3, he received an enthusiastic standing ovation when he entered the patio dining area, according to social media posts. It was likely Trump's last visit to Mar-a-Lago before he begins summer stays in other properties, especially Bedminster, New Jersey.
In some ways, PBAU's Borucki said, the next 100 days "will be really important" — but that is if the action is less about what is said or done at Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster and more about what happens on Capitol Hill.
"Congress has to do more also in extending the tax cuts from Trump's first term, and that's huge toward any end game to stimulate our own growth in addition to trade deals," he said.
Borucki added the president's reliance on executive orders "makes me wonder" about legacy, since a successor administration could revoke them with its own orders. In particular, Borucki said lawmakers should implement the proposals promised by Trump during the 2024 campaign, such as no taxes on tips or no taxes on overtime pay.
"American workers will want to see those promises kept, and no taxes on overtime pay would be especially important if domestic manufacturing gets a big shot in the arm from protectionist tariffs and subsequent trade deals," he said.
To that end, the White House and GOP majorities in Congress were working on a major piece of legislation to slash taxes and spending by mid-spring.
In the late April interview, Alden at the Council on Foreign Relations said he remained skeptical of Trump's continued glorifying of late 19th and early 20th century U.S. economic policies, plus his insistence that the economic history of the era should be repeated.
"It was not uniformly a period of strong growth. The analogies to the 1890s are extremely weak," he said. "If you're learning lessons from that era, they are going to be the wrong ones for sure."
The tariff policies Trump unveiled in his first 100 days, he said, risk snapping supply chains and cutting off U.S. manufacturers from suppliers for parts and other needs. Plus, he added that because of automation, factories don't create as many jobs as they used to.
And he said he is concerned that Trump's tariff plans, coupled with the immigration crackdown, will prove costly to Americans.
"What you can say with confidence is that both of President Trump's signature policies, trade protectionism and immigration restrictionism, are highly inflationary," he said. "They're both going to be felt in the wallets of consumers.
Trump is far from dissuaded by the "Tariff Lobby" and globalists "working hard to justify Countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and too many others to name, continue the decades long RIPOFF OF AMERICA, both with regard to TRADE, CRIME, AND POISONOUS DRUGS that are allowed to so freely flow into AMERICA," as he posted on Truth Social from Palm Beach during his first visit in early February.
Three months later, on May 8, he proclaimed that the first of the trade deals (this one with the United Kingdom), will raise $6 billion in "external revenue" from a 10% tariff that would generate $5 billion.
"This Deal shows that if you respect America, and bring serious proposals to the table, America is OPEN FOR BUSINESS. Many more to come — STAY TUNED!" he wrote on Truth Social.
The following week, on May 11, the administration announced the framework of a tariff accord with China.
Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at [e-mail]. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.