'Met his match': Ex-official warns 'power-crazed lackeys' could doom Trump regime

President Donald Trump has spent his first few months in office threatening and targeting various institutions he dislikes and using the power of the presidency to coerce them into making concessions, ranging from universities to law firms to media companies. But he's hit a brick wall with three in particular who just might not be in a mood to negotiate with him, former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote for The Guardian on Thursday.

"Encouraged by the ease with which many big US institutions caved in to their demands, the Trump regime – that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Donald Trump (JD Vance, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and RFK Jr) along with the child king himself – have overreached," wrote Reich. "They’ve dared China, Harvard and the Supreme Court to blink. But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked – and they won’t."

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China has been aggressively targeted by Trump's tariffs, and singled out even as other countries have received a 90-day grace period in which their goods will be taxed at reduced rates. The president wants them to capitulate in ways that will shift the import-export balance more toward U.S. exports.

But "China not only refused to back down when the Trump regime threatened it with huge tariffs, but also retaliated with huge tariffs of its own, plus a freeze on the export of rare-earth elements that the US’s high-tech and defense industries depend on."

Harvard, meanwhile, shows no signs of caving in response to Trump's suspension of scientific grants and threats against their tax-exempt status, which Trump is hoping will persuade them to crack down on student protesters.

And lastly, the Supreme Court — despite a 6-3 Republican majority anchored by three justices Trump appointed — unanimously rebuked Trump's defiance of lower courts in refusing to work for the return of wrongly-deported Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the infamous Salvadoran CECOT megaprison — but Trump continues to defy the order regardless and falsely claim the Supreme Court actually vindicated his position.

"I suspect the testosterone-poisoned lackeys around King Trump are urging him to hit back even harder, escalating their confrontations with China, Harvard and the Supreme Court. They view these showdowns as ultimate tests of the regime’s strength," wrote Reich.

The problem, he continued, is that Trump "knows these three institutions will not back down. They are rich and powerful enough to defy Trump’s escalating threats and demands. They cannot and will not cower. If Trump escalates his wars against them, they’ll become even stronger in the eyes of their supporters and constituents, and much of the world."

Ultimately, Reich concluded, these three are "Trump’s most formidable foes. If he doesn’t understand this and instead succumbs to the urges of his power-crazed lackeys, the Trump regime’s days will in effect be over before it even completes the first hundred of them."