pull back

But it noted that the White House still had "the option to pull back if the downside risks begin to look more serious".

"But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back," she says.

Rick Claypool, a researcher at Public Citizen, said it was expected that the Trump administration would seek to pull back from aggressively prosecuting financial companies accused of wrongdoing, but not to such an extent.

Trump had pulled back on tariff threats earlier in February, pending plans by its targets to block fentanyl and immigrants from entering the U.S.

While Trump has a history of issuing sweeping threats only to pull back at the last minute, many experts say they must be taken seriously.