This week in the saga

Tuesday the tariffs actually take effect on the two neighbours, and the same morning he demotes the northern prime minister to a governor in a post that reads like an instruction to a subordinate: please explain to him that a retaliatory tariff raises ours by the same amount. That is the entire policy, stated as arithmetic. Tuesday night is the longest address to a joint session anyone has ever given, one hour and forty minutes, and the line the chamber remembers is the promise that companies which move here pay nothing at all. Wednesday the prime minister calls, and by Wednesday afternoon the account of the call is public and includes the part where he was told that it's not good enough — a phone call published as a scoreboard. Thursday the exemptions begin, one country at a time, all of them expiring on April 2nd. Friday the pressure turns east: banking sanctions and tariffs on Russia, both parties told to get to the table right now, before it is too late. Everything in the week points at the same date.