I agree with everything here that you said, but do you think Trump "fears" anything? The problem I see with that assumption is that he would have to be able to understand what's going on in the first place. He is resistant to advice, meaning that even if his advisors tell him this is not good, he doesn't care. There were a few incidents now when he was informed that some of his own more important people said the opposite of what he is saying (like the Iran thing), and he simply says: "well, then they are wrong". Lol. Fear assumes understanding of the matter, I fear he doesn't understand.
Already had a fallout with Elon base on this policies. Yes leadership is not for someone that is a coward or taking excuses from just everyone. But been too stubborn to aid to advices is way more too stupid. I have seen that Trump takes the stands of he can do anything without been questioned. As for your question about whether he cares about what people say I will say he doesn’t but there are serious decisions you will make and when the impact of such decision hits you, you will have no choice to reverse the decision.
Look at this current situation of the tariff increase on countries, we all can see that it wasn’t those countries feeling it alone but even the Americans got hit with it too and as such reason why he continues to extend the cooling period for the ban, extending it to further more countries will definitely be felt more.
Easy thing that he needs to know is he doesn’t govern everyone and that he can stand and fight alone, America economy is in no state to get into any war at the moment