It is quite clear what Trump is doing with tariffs because his guys have written the strategy down and the document is public. Importantly, tariffs are linked to a global currency realignment, as well as to national security realignments, so if you think tariffs and trade is all that is going on, then read the document "A User's Guide to Restructing the Global Trading System" by Stephen Miran, linked below.
https://www.hudsonbaycapital.com/documents/FG/huds...
Stephen Miran is now head of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors. The Tresaury Secretary is now Scott Bessent, who also buys into this line of thought. Lower lying positions are also filled with people who buy into this. I extract some relevant bits of this long document later.

It is clear that's the purpose of the tariffs. It is not clear if the bosses knows about the plan or not. On Thursday on CNBC Project 2025 co-author and senior presidential advisor Peter Navarro asked what it would take to remove the tariffs. Navarro said "this is not a negotiation," and gave the examples of the VAT and Israel stealing US IP as reasons why tariffs needed to stay in place (apparently Russia always plays fair, so no tariffs on them). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the same thing on CNN: Non-tariff trade barriers are the issue, and those had to be removed before the tariffs can be negotiated. Obviously, no country with a VAT is going to restructure their tax system before starting negotiations on tariffs, so there you go. The tariffs will remain.

Then later in the day Trump said that tariffs are negotiable.