When elected leaders pursue risky policies, what can stop them?

It was chaotic for a few weeks in geopolitics.

At the beginning of the month, President Trump announced prices that launched the global economy in troubles. Investors have panicked, the stock markets plunged and analysts predicted an imminent recession.

Trump insisted that he will not change CAP, even as a billions of dollars in investments have vaporized. It was not until the markets for the US government obligations began to show signs of distress that he recently issued partial and temporary stay.

Although the global markets have become a little quieter after Mr. Trump fell from some of his prices, his apparent desire to cause serious distress on the stock market raises a crucial question: when governments make unpopular or poorly advised decisions, what can force them to retreat?

The advantages of soft limits compared to hard people

In healthy democracies, and even in many stable autocracies, leaders generally suffer a gentle pressure to moderate their policies. They are influenced not only by the elections, but also by the warnings of advisers, allies and powerful constituencies such as business owners.

We consider responsibility as something that happens during the ballot boxes, or in a courtroom, said Elizabeth Saunders, political scientist at the University of Columbia. We vot the leaders beyond power, or we bring charges against them.

But in fact, she said, the leaders are more often held in check by other types of pressure and less formal limits, such as advisers who threaten to resign if a poorly designed policy continues, or its legislative colleagues which prevent electoral consequences.

But if the leaders have enough power, they can ignore this sweet pressure and pass unpopular policies even if they are catastrophically damaging. In these cases, they can only respond to stricter forms of pressure, such as dismissal, mass uprisings or upheavals in the bond markets.

Recent stories of countries like Turkey, India and, to a certain extent, Great Britain, offer lessons on the way this phenomenon takes place.

When leaders react quickly to the hard limits

In 2022, Liz Truss, Prime Minister of the British, announced a scanning plan for tax reductions funded by the government's loan. The markets reacted very badly: the actions, the British currency and the request for British government obligations have all dropped.

(A rapid initiation on obligations: when governments, companies or other institutions sell obligations, they borrow money from investors. Obligations are therefore essentially ius)

Nations leaders tend to be particularly sensitive to disorders on the state bond market, as they use obligations to finance their operations.

Faced with a bond market crisis, Ms. Truss, like Mr. Trump, was forced to reverse the course in a few days and she resigned two months later. As part of the British parliamentary system, Ms. Truss's legislators had a easier way to put her pressure to resign as the parties of the parties. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is not under the same constraints.

Sweet limits, soft landing

In the past, more soft forms of pressure than bond market crises have often been sufficient to restrict the American presidents.

In 1973, for example, the resignation massacre on Saturday evening of President Richard Nixons Justice Department caused an increase in public support for dismissal, contributing to the chain reaction of public disappointments which finally led to Mr. Nixons resign from his functions less than a year later.

In the following years, the simple threat of mass resignation was often sufficient. In a normal presidential administration, threats of resignation can occur, but real protest resignations are very rare, said Ms. Saunders de Columbia. Much more common but mainly hidden until the report later in the press or in history are threats to resign that never happen.

In 2004, for example, President George W. Bush agreed to change the part of his surveillance policy after senior officials from the Ministry of Justice, notably the Attorney General and the Director of the FBI, threatened to resign.

But to function as a constraint, such resignations must have the potential to impose costs, such as damage to the chances of re -election of presidents or limits to a political program.

This does not seem to be true for Mr. Trump, because these resignations also remove internal criticism which could act as roadblocks to his policies, and cost him little support. The lesson that Mr. Trump and his inner circle seem to have taken from his first mandate is that in his second, he should be more prudent to surround himself with people who are faithful to his agenda, and should dismiss or punish those who are not.

When Danielle Sassoon, acting American lawyer for the South District of New York, resigned to protest against Trump's decision of the administrations of the criminal accusations against the mayor of New York, in what she called a quid pro quo, her actions did not lead to a substantial fall in public support for Mr. Trump. His resignation did not hinder Mr. Trumps' political agenda. In fact, he may have smoothed his way. Another lawyer abandoned the charges against the mayor of New York, who remains in office.

For Mr. Trump, resignations are an upward advantage, said Saunders. They are part of the point.

Hard limits after more difficult consequences

The insulation of most forms of pressure is more typical of semi-democratic hybrid systems, in which leaders often manage to raise as much power as they are no longer sensitive to soft limits or even many more difficult people. If the leaders are not moved by dissent or public pressure, they can stick to prejudicial policies well after the disaster point.

In Turkey, at the beginning of this decade, for example, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued an unorthodox policy to reduce interest rates in the face of high inflation, the opposite of traditional economic councils. He refused to change the course even if the inflation rates increased 80% and the cost of living has skyrocketed. It was only after the elections in 2023, in which he did worse than expected and had to go to the runoff against the opposition candidate, that he finally changed course, installing a respected finance minister and a new head of the central bank to pursue a more traditional macroeconomic policy.

I think that Erdogan realized the extent to which economic grievances may have formed a threat to his re -election, even on a highly inclined playground in his favor, said Lisel Hintz, political scientist at Johns Hopkins University who studies Turkish politics. But it was too late to reverse most damage. Turkey is still struggling with inflation, high government loan costs and a cost of living crisis.

The election time can also blunt their efficiency as a check. A leader of years far from re -election can feel less pressure to keep the voters happy in the short term. In India in 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a sudden demonetization policy, in which he actually invalidated the country's paper currency overnight, without warning.

The consequences were serious, including a treasury shortage so acute that it led certain citizens to suicideAnd politics has failed to achieve its declared objective of punishing criminals and tax escapes. But when the next National Indias elections arrived in 2019, the pain of the crisis had faded and Mr. Modis' party won easily.

Sometimes the leaders refuse to change the course for so long that they meet one of the ultimate harsh limits: being forced from its functions by a mass uprising. In Sri Lanka in 2021, the government prohibited chemical fertilizers, one of the numerous policies imposed in order to consolidate the reserves of declining currency caused by years of economic mismanagement. The government faced a relatively low opposition and refused to lift the prohibition despite an uproar from the farmers. Gotabaya Rajapaka led the administration at the time, and he had appointed his brothers and his nephew to his office, my colleague from the New York Times, Emily Schmall, who covered the crisis, explained at the time. He did not take a lot of advice from the outside of his family.

As Mr. Rajapaksa reversed the policy seven months later, it was too late. Casting crop yields have contributed to an economic crisis and high inflation. The government has struggled to borrow money, and imports have become rare, causing fuel shortages and foods that have brought mass demonstrations in the street.

Soon it was over. The demonstrators invaded the government's buildings and Mr. Rajapaka, whose family had held power for most of the previous two decades, submitted its resignation in 2022.

For Mr. Trump, the past few weeks have revealed that his tolerance at risk and chaos remain high, leaving the uncertain Americans of the future. And it could be expensive. Like Diane Swonk, the chief economist of KPMG, told my colleague Talmon Joseph Smith, uncertainty is his own tax on the economy.