Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't know what capitulations are happening behind the scenes
No, so far we only see the very public capitulations coming from the Trump administration. We're also seeing a lot of signaling, also very public, from every other major economy that they are prepared to move on without the US.
If we translate this into negotiating at a used car dealership, I don’t think it would look that different. Of course everyone is going to project strength in public communications. Doing otherwise would put them in a worse negotiating position. You have to make your opponent think you’ll do something drastic, or else they won’t budge. So you have everyone yelling about how they’re doing something drastic. Just like the first salvos at a used car dealership - dealer sets a ridiculous price, buyer declares they are going to walk away.
By the way I don’t think this is 4D chess. More like basic classical international relations. It just looks more like the 1800s than the 2020s, which makes people confused. It doesn’t take any particular cleverness to enact basic negotiating strategies. It just takes a lack of caring about collateral damage.