Trump has 'botched' his whole tariff plan with a single slip of the tongue: report
The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait claimed in an article Friday that President Donald Trump's plan to encourage American manufacturing by imposing huge import tariffs was doomed from the moment he offered to negotiate with targeted countries.
"The key to making it work was to convince businesses that the new arrangement is durable," Chait wrote. "Nobody is going to invest in building new factories in the United States to create goods that until last week could be imported more cheaply unless they’re certain that the tariffs making the domestic version more competitive will stay in place."
White House talking points described the tariffs "as a permanent new feature of the global economy," Chait wrote.
"But not everybody got the idea. Eric Trump tweeted, “I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose.”
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Chait wrote that "Eric’s father apparently didn’t get the memo either. Asked by reporters whether he planned to negotiate the tariff rates, the president said, 'The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.'"
Once Trump understood his mistake, he posted on Truth Social, "TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.”
The problem, according to Chait was, "Once you’ve said you might negotiate the tariffs, nobody is going to believe you when you change your mind and say you’ll never negotiate." And, indeed, just over two hours later, Chait wrote that Trump posted that he had just negotiated a possible agreement with Vietnam.
Chait concluded that Trump's original plan, even if executed perfectly, was "not a good one by any means." But that plan is now "botched" and the future of American trade remains uncertain.