Aides of United States President Donald Trump sent mixed messages to the media over the weekend regarding hard-hitting tariff measures against countries across the globe.
Since inauguration day and by Friday's close just passed, Wall Street had wiped off US$9.6 trillion, as China, which was hit with a 34% tariff hike, hit back with its own 34% levy on American products starting on 10 April.
What senior officials say
U.S. commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News' Face the Nation that the tariffs would not be postponed.
Asked whether tariffs would be postponed to allow countries to negotiate a deal with Washington, he replied: "There is no postponing - they are definitely staying in place for days and weeks, that is sort of obvious.”
“There is no postponing – they are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks, that is sort of obvious.”
Lutnick added that Trump intended to “reset global trade”. “The president has made it crystal, crystal clear.”
Yet Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC's Meet the Press that Trump had “created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation”.
Long-standing Trump supporter Texas Senator Ted Cruz said there would be a “bloodbath” among Republicans if a recession hit ahead of the mid-terms - a key moment in Trump’s four-year presidency.
Former Trump VP Mike Pence denounced the tariffs as the “largest peacetime tax hike in US history”, while North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis said “anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right needs to talk to farmers who are one crop away from bankruptcy”, as reported by the Guardian.
Speaking to ABC Newsweek, former US Treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency Larry Summers called the tariffs the “biggest self-inflicted wound we’ve put on our economy in history”.
California Democrat Senator Adam Schiff told Meet the Press that “if we head into a recession, it will be the Trump recession”. “He’s wrecking our economy.”
