Trump administration officials fanned out across the media talk shows on Sunday to defend tariffs imposed by the president on just about every country on Earth.
The reciprocal tariffs were long promised by President Trump, who feels the U.S. has been ripped off by trading practices of friends and foes that have run trade deficits with the United States.
But the size and scope of the tariffs caught many by surprise, and led to a dramatic sell-off on Wall Street that saw trillions in wealth wiped out as stock markets fell precipitously on Thursday and Friday.
It has also provoked consternation among some segments of the right that have criticized the president’s actions, illustrating a split among conservatives over the wisdom of provoking a major trade war.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett in a Sunday interview on ABC’s “This Week” insisted the massive tariffs won’t have a “big effect on the consumer in the U.S.,” while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” described the tariffs as a “one-time price adjustment.”
Both suggested the tariffs will not lead to inflation, even though some companies have already indicated they will raise prices to help pay for the cost of the tariffs.
Hassett said more than 50 countries are “coming to the table” to negotiate, suggesting the tariffs could be lowered. Bessent drew a distinction between tariffs and continuous price increases caused by inflation.
“So, there’s a big difference between insipid, endemic inflation within the system and consistent price level increases and a one-time adjustment,” he said.
Some GOP allies of Trump in Congress also worked to defend the president.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told Chris Stirewalt, the host of “The Hill Sunday,” that while at the end of the day he wants “zero tariffs,” Trump needs to protect U.S. farmers and manufacturers.
Farmers are among the U.S. groups who could be hit hardest by retaliatory action by U.S. trading partners in response to the tariffs, but Marshall said they were already dealing with an unfair system.
“You know, growing up in Kansas, since the day I was born, I’ve heard farmers say, you know, why does Europe have a 50 percent tariff on American agriculture? India, 100, Canada, 200 and beyond the tariffs. It’s the nontariff barriers. A lot of those countries simply won’t let agriculture products into those countries. So, yes, short-term pain, long-term gain, bring the jobs back, and then get to true, free, reciprocal tariffs,” Marshall said.
Some GOP senators, however, have raised reservations about Trump’s tariffs, arguing that while there is some unfairness in the global system, the rising trade war could cause more harm.
“I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity. I don’t think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.
“If the result of yesterday’s announcement is a lot of our trading partners across the globe dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on U.S. goods and services, and the consequence of that is the U.S. government dramatically cuts the tariffs that were announced yesterday, that would be a great outcome. That would be good for America,” he said.
“If the result is our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere, I think that is a bad outcome for America. Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I’m not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has criticized the tariffs, while Bill Ackman, the hedge fund investor who has frequently sided with Trump, on Saturday argued Trump might lift the tariffs as soon as Monday.
“One would have to imagine the president’s phone has been ringing off the hook. The practical reality is that there is insufficient time for him to make deals before the tariffs are scheduled to take effect. I would therefore not be surprised to wake up Monday with an announcement from the president that he was postponing the implementation of the tariffs to give him time to make deals,” Ackman wrote.
He praised Trump as a president committed to the critical issue of elevating “the importance of resolving an unfair tariff regime that has harmed American workers and decimated our industrial base over many decades.”
“The problem, however, can’t be resolved in days, so why wouldn’t a pause make sense to give the president time to properly resolve this critical issue and to allow companies large and small the time to prepare for changes in their supply chains?”
Ackman also warned that the threat of not pausing the tariffs was a recession, “potentially a severe one.”
He and many other observers are bracing to see what will happen on Monday morning when markets open.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost nearly 4,000 points, a bit less than 10 percent of its value, in two days, while the Nasdaq composite has suffered even larger percentage losses.
Trump, however, has expressed continued confidence in his policies and has not signaled any shift in his strategy. He has urged investors to buy into U.S. markets, while criticizing the leaders of China, which announced its own retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. on Friday, for panicking.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also defended the tariffs on Sunday, including the imposition of duties on some countries that are uninhabited, saying “the idea is that there are no countries left off.”
He pointed to China’s response to Trump’s tariffs in 2018 as an example of why hitting all countries with at least a minimum 10 percent tariff was necessary, arguing Beijing would just divert its exports to the U.S. through third countries.
“The president knows that. He’s tired of it, and he’s going to fix that,” Lutnick said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“So basically he said, ‘Look, I can’t let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them,’ so he ended those loopholes, these ridiculous loopholes.’”
“And now what he’s trying to say is, ‘I’m going to fix the trade deficit of the United States of America. It’s a national security issue. We need to make medicine. We need to make semiconductors. We need to make ships. We need to have steel and aluminum. Come on, we need the greatness of America to actually be built in America.’ And he’s tired of getting ripped off by the rest of the world.”