There have been attempts here and there to pinpoint a definitive “Trump Doctrine”, or at least to assign some cohesive ideological fingerprint to President Donald Trump. Anybody interested in pursuing such a venture must be despairing at their prospects after this week.

The strike on Iran a little more than a fortnight ago gave rise to the hope President Trump had found his footing in terms of foreign policy. It was, in fact, a definitive moment, the moment in which he most capably performed his duties as president — he identified a credible threat to the interests of the nation, and took action to neutralize that threat in a most convincing manner. It was the doctrine of peace through demonstrable strength, a welcome pivot from both the head-in-sand isolationism festering within the president’s sphere, and the feckless, “lead from behind” half-measures progressively making the world an even more dangerous place during the past 20 years. It even translated into convincing nearly all of our NATO partners to pony up a reasonable share for the collective defense of the West. Pax Americana was back.

For a few days.

It would not be accurate to say Trump squandered all the deterrent value he gained for the United States with the strike on Iran with his bewildering decision to shut off arms supplies to Ukraine at the beginning of the month, but it certainly set things back a bit. Displaying weakness in front of Russia after quite profoundly demonstrating strength to Iran rather left the impression the new American doctrine was her strength was only available to display to adversaries considerably weaker, and it was unavailable to display against more formidable threats — not exactly the deterrent value we may have hoped for.

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The reason offered by the Pentagon doves (now somewhat euphemistically dubbed the “restrainer” faction of the administration) was the arms destined for Ukraine were drawn from U.S. weapon stockpiles running perilously low. It’s not an entirely invalid argument; we certainly do not want to put ourselves in a position, for instance, where we don’t have enough Patriot missiles down the road to defend U.S. airbases effectively.

But the solution to that problem is to build more Patriot missiles. If you have a fire approaching your back fence, you don’t withhold deployment of a fire extinguisher out of concern it may be needed sooner or later for a fire in your garage. You make sure you have enough fire extinguishers.

In any case, Trump came around this week, after Russia handed Ukrainian civilians another aerial beating, and an evidently less-than-cordial phone conversation with Russian president “Vlad the Mad” Putin. “We get a lot of bulls*** thrown at us by Putin,” Trump told reporters, adding the Russian dictator was “very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.” It was a revelation on the order of discovering a hot stove burns your hand when you touch it, but late comers are welcome, and it translated into Trump reversing his decision from a week earlier and resuming arms supplies to the Ukrainians.

This is a welcome development, but the dizzying on-again-off-again support must make it hell on Ukrainian battle planners, who have enough to deal with already.

This is remarkably similar to his whiplash approach to trade policy. Back in April, “Liberation Day” provoked a stock market crash, a run on the dollar, a spike in bond yields and a general panic throughout the economy. Trump just announced a new round of tariffs, and the market reaction has been rather muted — largely because the market has no bloody idea whether Trump will keep his word on these ones or not. His trade policy is essentially minute by minute.

The argument here of course is these tariff threats are instrumental in encouraging foreign governments to rework their own trade policies in a manner favorable to the U.S. Maybe, but this sort of economic-and-social engineering on an international scale is not conducive to the type of stability a healthy market economy relies on.

And if the new tariffs are designed to enhance national security, they are especially misplaced. I am sympathetic to the idea of exerting economic pressure on Red China. But how exactly is that going to be effectively accomplished by imposing crippling tariffs on South Korea and Japan, two nations indispensable in any strategy to counter China’s regional influence?

There is, it can be readily conceded, some value in keeping one’s adversaries guessing. It is rather less clear what the value is in keeping everyone guessing. Trump seems to trend in the general direction of doing the right thing on foreign and trade policy — eventually — once confronted with reality, which differentiates him from most Democratic Presidents. It would be good for everyone if he would get there a little quicker, and stay there when he does.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.