The line fell silent.
In a telephone call from the oval office, President Trump has just released unwelcome news three of the strongest American cars: Mary Barra from General Motors, John Elkann of Stellantis and Jim Ford Ford.
Everyone has to evoke, Mr. Trump said at the challenge that took place in early March. The tariffs come into force on April 2. It’s time for everyone to get on board.
Car chiefs, as well as the leaders of other industries, claimed that 25 % of Mr. Trump’s car tariffs on cars from Canada and Mexico would cause confusion on their supply chains and threw a hole in their industry. They won a concession of species when Mr. Trump agreed to give them a monthly retribution, until April 2.
But now it seemed that the main three car bosses realized that there was no point in fighting for others. They got as much as they got.
For corporate America, including some major donors, Mr. Trump’s second term is that it turns out that it really believes what 40 years publicly say: foreign countries are tearing America and tariffs are a silver bullet for US problems. When he says the “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionaryit means.
For Mr. Trump, tariffs are not just a bargaining tool. He believes he will do America again. And they combine two of his favorite features of the Presidency: they are a one -sided force that he can turn on or turn off on the whim, creating a begging economy, forcing powerful people to ask for mercy.
This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen Trump administration officials and others who are familiar with dynamics in the White House above the tariffs. They asked for anonymity to discuss private interviews and negotiations.
In the business community – a group that spends the assets of consultants to interpret Mr. Trump and where the cliché takes him “seriously but not literally” is in high circulation – many of them held up View that he saw tariffs only as a leverage tool. It wasn’t that Mr. Trump loved tariffs, they said. It was that he loved what their threat could bring in negotiations.
Over the years, it has become a conventional wisdom that the stock market was Mr. Trump led by light and railing, and that any decline in the markets would limit the extent of its tariffs that were surgically applied seven years ago.
However, the Trump 47 has so far failed the minor market and the subtitles that would force the Trump 45 the other way around. The industrial average Dow Jones has shaved by more than 600 points since the beginning of the new tariffs. S&P 500 slipped into repairWhich means that it dropped by more than 10 percent of its peak.
During his first term, Mr. Trump had a weaker stomach for economic pain caused by a much narrower tariff program. During the first term, he placed tariffs at more than $ 300 billion; Now, less than two months, he slapped tariffs for about $ 1 trillion goods.
Several recent polls of public opinions show a growing number of Americans who disagree with Mr. Trump’s economy, but its advisors insist that they are more of a persistent high prices than tariffs.
One of the advisors of Mr. Trump, who spoke of the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews, said that Biden’s Presidency showed Mr. Trump that the stock market was not a reliable barometer of the future of the economy, nor a useful indicator of voters sentiment. If it were, Mr. Biden, who chaired the flourishing stock market, would certainly be president, said the advisor and explained Mr. Trump’s thinking.
Advisors say Mr. Trump knows that foreign leaders are watching whether he is watching his threats and looking for signs of weakness. They said they believe that the support of his tariffs would permanently damage his preferred image as strong.
Ever granted the absolution of the species – like when exempt from tariff products From Canada and Mexico, which follow his North American Term Agreement. However, he repeatedly said that more and larger tariffs are on the way.
Business leaders are now quickly re -evaluating the cheerful assumptions that have led their thinking since the election day.
Bill Reinsch, head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Sales Department, said that Mr. Trump was expressing his intentions in his campaign and that his tariff proposals were much deeper and wider this time than in his first term.
“I think he was clear,” he said. “I don’t think people paid great attention to.”
Their incorrect is understandable.
At the beginning of the elections 2024, a new crop of economic advisors sent Mr. Trump calming signals on Wall Street. Their public remarks suggest that Mr. Trump’s second business policy would be almost the first. In September, Howard Lutnick, now the Minister of Commerce, described the tariffs as a “bargaining chip” that would eventually lead to looser markets. And Scott Bessnt, who became Minister of Finance Mr. Trump, wrote last year to his clients in a letter that “the tariff weapon will always be loaded and on the table, but rarely released”.
It is still possible that Mr. Trump is retreating from some of his tariffs, but if he is considering reversal, it would be a message for his closest advisor. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he plans to release Much larger tariffs Apr. April and his advisors told foreign officials and managers that he would not be reflected. According to two people with direct knowledge who spoke of the condition of anonymity to describe private interviews, his comments on his secretaries of the cabinet and helpers at oval office meetings follow their public rhetoric.
Mr. Trump personally proposes or dictates his true social contributions that threaten the escalating tariffs such as China, Canada and the European Union to retaliation against its provocations. Even former helpers who think his maximalist approach is bad, saying that he has a valid point about how China and Europe have treated unjustly United States in terms of trade.
He feels that pressure has worked so far, says assistants who quote the willingness of Mexico to stop the flow of undocumented migrants and fentanyl into the United States. Even after Mexico came up with these measures, Mr. Trump still moved forward with 25 percent tariffs before he stopped on several items.
One of the biggest differences between the first term and now is that Mr. Trump is much more confident in his instincts and stored his team with people who reflect them. He rarely hears strong disapproving views on his economic policies.
Mr. Trump received a hard opposition towards tariffs in his first term of office from those who stated that they would increase the costs of consumers and companies and slow down the economy. His team included people who would mock Mr. Trump as “globalists” – such as Steven Mnuchin, then Minister of Finance, and economic advisor Gary Cohn, who worked with others to stop tariffs by other helpers such as Larry Kudlow, were less confrontational but still skeptical about protectionist business policy.
Hard-line business advisor Mr. Trump Peter Navarro had an oval office screaming matches against the so-called globalists. Now that they are returning to the second term, Mr. Navarr’s disputes with other advisors are more nuances.
Mr. Bessnt was the Executive Fund of the Hedge Fund and Mr. Lutnick was the CEO of Wall Street Cantor Fitzgerald. However, they both publicly accepted tariffs before they were given work. And no matter what they think, whether they think it thinks privately, no one sitting through the resolute table by Mr. Trump and trying hard against his economic ideas. The arguments of his current team revolve around public reports on tariffs, exceptions and scope and timing of tariffs, but no one disputes the idea of their use in some form.
Even Mr. Trump does not hear a strong disagreement from Capitol Hill. Republican legislators are either a conversion into protectionism or sliced against the performance. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is a rare institution leaning on the right side constantly challenging its approach to trade.
Mr. Lutnick, who also oversees the US Business Office, receives many calls from unfortunate business leaders, along with the Chief of the White House Staff Susie Wiles and the Minister of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.
On the night of March 13, Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Bessnt, Kevin Hassett, who is the director of the National Economic Council, and several others met at the naval observatory with Vice President of JD to discuss the cohesive public message on the economy, in the middle of complaints about discrepancies.
White House officials refused to comment on the meeting.
But in his statement provided by the White House, Mr. Navarro described Mr. Trump’s advisor as following his leadership, who characterized them as “a diverse group with additional skills and a high level of confidence with names such as Bessnt, Greer, Hassett and Lutnick, who debate behind the closed doors and emerge as” one group, one sound. ”
Several exceptions were awarded. Mrs. Rollins heard an important component for fertilizer from farmers who wanted an exception to Potash. Mr. Trump eventually agreed to a reduced 10 % tariff, but was unfortunate, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. In her statement, Mrs. Rollins said that the president’s “reduction of tariffs to Potash is a critical step in helping farmers to manage and ensure key entry costs at the peak of the planting season and strengthen long -term agricultural business relations”.
But in many other cases, Mr. Trump seemed much less willing to offer significant industrial exceptions than in the first term.
While some industry managers tried to push back during discussions with the White House, very few of them publicly said something; Those who earned the anger of Trump’s administration. Those who spoke privately, in general, sandwiched any criticism of Mr. Trump among rich praise.
Some companies have been “intimidated” to push back on tariffs, alert to become a goal, Reinsch said. “No one wants to disclose,” he said, “because they fear the consequences.”
However, these companies still count on policies that prefer, such as tax cuts and deregulation.
