Stephen Diamond spoke to Protocol.com about the New York Stock Exchange’s flip-flopping statements this week over the delisting of Chinese tech stocks. Last week the NYSE announced it would delist the stocks of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom to comply with the Trump administration’s November order barring U.S. companies and individuals from investing in Chinese firms that work with the Chinese military. The NYSE reversed that decision on Monday, and changed it again on Wednesday when it reaffirmed the plan to delist the stocks.

Stephen Diamond, a law professor at Santa Clara University, said the exchange may have been caught flat-footed by yet another unexpected move by the Trump administration, which has been waging a bitter trade and economic war against China. “The NYSE just got caught in this whole mess that is Trump,” he told Protocol. “It’s like every other administrative effort. It’s driven by Trump’s ego, not by rational policy.”