To be quite honest I don't understand how Trump managed to cancel the wage increase of federal employees just like that after a tax cut. If the government in Belgium had tried, the country would have striked for months, the government fallen. Americans are weak and obedient.

While I think its absurd that he cut them, it is for federal employees which is a very small % of Americans. Had it been state employees - thus impacting schools, fire, police, infra - I would expect a different outcome.

There are about 3 millions people employed by the federal government according to wikipedia. It would take what, a hundred of them to block all highway access to Washington DC until Trump is forced to backtrack? That's not even a hundredth of a percent of them.

Think about it that way: every one of these employees should be able to spend about 1.2k dollars to force the government to award them their wage increase, at zero cost for them.