In past few days, Trump has reversed himself on tariffs twice, warned Putin to lighten up on Ukraine, and reined in Elon Musk. This is in addition to countless lesser reversals that would normally command headlines, such as allowing 443 government buildings to be up for sale and then abruptly taking down the offer a day later.

But in all of this self-imposed chaos, there are patterns.

The first is impulsivity. His imposition of tariffs on Canada, for instance, based on a complete fiction that Canada is responsible for a nontrivial fraction of fentanyl smuggling, was pure impulse.

The second is hypersensitivity to slights. In the second round of partially withdrawn tariffs, Canada’s Justin Trudeau got nastier treatment than Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum because Trudeau, in a televised statement, basically told Trump to stuff it while Sheinbaum played Trump more gently. Ukraine’s Zelensky got the full Trump mobster treatment because he wasn’t prepared to genuflect in the face of lie after lie.

The third and more important consistency is that Trump reliably backs down in the face of serious force. When Canada and Mexico both refused to give Trump any more face-saving concessions in exchange for tariff relief, Trump relented anyway. When the cabinet finally found some spine and complained about Elon Musk’s wanton destruction at the expense of their authority and common sense, Trump reined in Musk. And after Europe united in defense of Ukraine, Trump softened his position on Zelensky, criticized Putin, and professed support for a peace deal.

Cabinet pushback on Trump, notably from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, contributed to Trump’s reversals on tariffs, where the president’s policy-by-whim was undermining investor confidence and clobbering the stock market. And while Marco Rubio’s pushback at the Thursday cabinet meeting against Musk’s meddling with State Department staffing got the headlines, Rubio, a longtime critic of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, has surely been pushing back privately on Trump’s coziness with Putin.

Of these several turnabouts, Trump’s Friday statements on Putin and Ukraine are the most bizarre. In the past week, Trump has praised Putin effusively and signaled Zelensky to forget about U.S. military support. This was followed by a suspension of shipments of weapons, and an end of sharing of military intelligence. Not surprisingly, Putin took this as permission to go all in and finish Ukraine off. On Friday, Russia’s aerial bombardment used 67 missiles and 194 attack drones, targeting Ukraine’s electricity grid and even partly destroying a hotel in Zelensky’s hometown, killing four people.

At that, Trump did a 180 and threatened new sanctions on Russia. Friday afternoon, Trump wrote on social media, "Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely ‘pounding’ Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED."

Say what? Speaking to stunned reporters in the Oval Office afterward, Trump seemed to look at the situation from Putin’s point of view: "I think he’s hitting them harder than he’s been hitting them," he said. "And I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now."

Well, yes—especially after Trump himself signaled that he was abandoning Zelensky. What Trump’s true Ukraine policy might be is anyone’s guess, including Trump himself.

And that suggests the most alarming consistency in Trump’s inconsistency. He literally can’t remember what he said or did from one day to the next. Sometimes, even Trump admits that. When asked by a reporter, after an Oval Office meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer whether he still believed that Zelensky was a dictator, Trump responded: "Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that."

All of this is terrifying, but it does suggest a certain vulnerability. Having to repeatedly countermand your own incoherent policies is a sign of weakness. It invites more pushback. Republican critics of Trump, European allies, federal judges, and Democrats facing a big budget battle should all keep that in mind. Trump is far from invincible.