Trump’s reversals have their basis in now grasping job

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is abruptly reversing himself on key issues. And he’s startlingly candid about the reason: He’s just now really learning about some of them.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president said after a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping that included his hopes that China’s pressure could steer North Korea away from its nuclear efforts.

“I f e l t p r e t t y s t r o n g l y that they had a tremendous power” over North Korea, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “But it’s not what you would think.”

That’s just one of several recent comments offering insight into what looks like a moderate makeover for the president.

As he approaches 100 days in office, he appears to be increasingly embracing what he describes as his “flexibility” — acknowledging he may not have thought deeply about some of the issues he talked about throughout his political campaign.

Over the past week, the o u t s i d e r p o l i t i c i a n who pledged to upend Washington has:

■ Ab a n d o n e d h i s vow to label China a currency manipulator.

■ Rethought his handsoff assessment of the Syrian conflict — and ordered a missile attack.

■ T u r n e d h i s w a r m approach toward Vladimir Putin decidedly chilly and declared U.S.-Russia relations “may be at an all-time low.”

■ D e c i d e d NAT O i s n’ t actually obsolete, as he had claimed.

■ R e a l i z e d t h e U . S . Export-Import Bank is worth keeping around.

“Instinctively, you would say, ‘Isn’t that a ridiculous thing,’ ” he said of the bank he once panned as “featherbedding” and pledged to eliminate.

He now says of the bank, which supports U.S. exports, “Actually, it’s a very good thing. And it actually makes money.”

Allies describe Trump as merely growing in the job, taking what he’s learning and adapting. The White House, however, is struggling to explain some of the changes.

Asked about the growing li st of reversals Wednesday, spokesman Sean Spicer argued that NATO actually is “evolving toward the president’s position,” not the other way around, by focusing more on terrorism and encouraging nations to pay more toward defense.

It may also be that Trump is merely looking for a way to improve his low approval rating, acknowledging his best tactic could be switching to a more pragmatic approach.

“Candidates are always bombastic on the campaign trail — and Trump especially. But there is some growing into the office and dealing with the real effects of some of the policies,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who helped craft Trump’s economic plans.

Trump appears to be listening to different advisers now.

Trump’s evolution also re f l e c t s c hangi ng power dynamics within the White House, including the rise of Gary Cohn, his economics chief and the former president of Goldman Sachs. His onetime c ampaign guru, S t e ve Bannon, has been somewhat marginalized.