The line fell silent.
In a telephone call of the oval office, President Trump has just brought undesirable news to the three most powerful American car managers: Mary Barra of General Motors, John Elkann of Stellantis and Jim Farley from Ford.
Everyone needs to attach themselves, Mr. Trump said at the invitation, which happened in early March. Tariffs enter into force on April 2. It’s time for everyone to board.
Auto chiefs, such as leaders of other industries, claimed that 25 percent of Mr. Trump’s tariff on cars coming from Canada and Mexico will devastate on their supply chains and blow a hole through their industry. They won a kind of concession when Mr. Trump agreed to come a one -month return until April 2.
But now, it seemed that the bosses of a large three car manufacturers realized that there was no point in fighting more. They got as much as they would get.
For corporate America, including some great donors, the shock of Mr. Trump’s second term is that it turns out that he really believes what he has been saying publicly for 40 years: foreign countries are expiring America, and tariffs are a silver bullet for US problems. When he says he is “tariff” the most beautiful word in the dictionaryHe means that.
Mr. Trump, the tariffs are not just a negotiating tool. He believes that America will re -do rich. And they combine two of his favorite features of the Presidency: they are a one -sided force that can include or exclude whim, and they create a beggar of economics, forcing powerful people to come before him to pray for mercy.
This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen Trump administration officials and others who are familiar with the dynamics in the White House over tariffs. They asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations and discussions.
In a corporate community – a group that consumes wealth on Mr. Trump’s interpretation advisers, and where the cliché is to take it “seriously but not literally” to a great extent – many have attacked themselves for view that the tariff saw only as a tool of influence. It was not that Mr. Trump loved the tariffs, they told themselves. It was that he loved what a threat could fulfill in negotiations.
Over the years, it has become a conventional wisdom that the stock market has been the leading light and protection of Mr. Trump and that any fall in markets will limit the scope of its tariffs, which were more surgically applied seven years ago.
But Trump 47 has so far been undiscovered by a decaying market and titles that would force Trump 45 to vice versa. The industrial average Dow Jones has shaved more than 600 points since new tariffs began. S & P 500 slid into correctionwhich means he fell by more than 10 percent from his top.
During his first term, Mr. Trump had a weaker stomach due to economic pain caused by a far narrower tariff program. During his first term, he placed tariffs at more than $ 300 billion in product; Now, less than two months, he slapped the tariffs to approximately $ 1 trillion.
Several recent public opinions surveys show an increasing number of Americans who do not approve of Mr. Trump’s treatment with the economy, but his advisers insist that it relates more to long -term high prices than tariffs.
One of Mr. Trump’s advisers, speaking of the state of anonymity to describe private conversations, said that Biden Presidency proved to Mr. Trump that the stock market is not a stupid barometer of the future of the economy, or a useful indicator of the sense of voter. If it were, Mr. Biden, who presided over the flourishing market of the shares, he would certainly be the president, the advisor said, explaining Mr. Trump’s thinking.
Advisors say Mr. Trump knows that foreign leaders are watching whether it comes to follow his threats, seeking signs of weakness. They said he believed that giving up his tariff would permanently damage his preferred image as strong.
Sometimes approved a kind of devastation – as when excluded from product tariff From Canada and Mexico who are in line with their North American trade agreement. But he repeatedly said he was more and more tariff on the road.
Business leaders are now quickly questioning the cheerful assumptions that have been leading their thinking from the day of the election.
Bill Reinsch, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former trade department, said that Mr Trump was explicitly in the campaign on his intentions, and that his tariff proposals were much deeper and wider this time than in the first term.
“I think he was clear,” he said. “I don’t think people have paid a lot of attention.”
Their wrong reading is understandable.
On driving until the 2024 election, Mr. Trump’s new crop of economic advisers sent convincing signals to Wall Street. Their public remarks suggested that Mr. Trump’s second -born trade policy would be the same as the first. In September, Howard Lutnick, now a trade secretary, described the tariff as a “negotiating chip” that would ultimately lead to free markets. And Scott Beesent, who became the secretary of Mr. Trump’s treasury, wrote in a letter to his clients last year that “a tariff gun will always be loaded on the table as well, but rarely release.”
It is still possible for Mr. Trump to move away from some of his tariffs, but if he thinks about a turnaround, it would be the news to his closest advisers. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he plans to betray much more extensive tariffs April 2, and his advisers told foreign officials and main executives that he would not distract him. His comments to his secretaries of the cabinet and assistant at the oval office meetings are accompanied by his public rhetoric, according to two people with direct knowledge, who spoke about the state of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Mr. Trump personally draws or dictates his truths of social posts that threaten tariffs that constantly escalate, because China, Canada and the European Union are empowered against his provocations. Even former assistants who think his maximum approach is wrong. They say he has a valid point of how China and Europe have been unjustly treated the United States when it comes to trade.
He believes that the pressure has acted so far, the assistants say, stating the willingness of Mexico to stop the flow of unfathomable migrants and fental in the United States. Even after Mexico appeared with these measures, Mr. Trump continued to push forward with 25 percent of tariffs before stopping to apply for numerous items.
One of the biggest differences between the first term is that Mr. Trump is far more confident in his instincts and has supplied his team with the people who echo them. He rarely hears strong disidential attitudes about his economic policy.
Mr. Trump got fierce opposition to tariffs in his first term from those who said he would increase the costs for consumers and businesses and slow down the economy. His team was involved in the involvement of the people who would call Mr. Trump “Globalists” – like Steven Mnuchin, then Minister of Treasury, and economic advisor Gary Cohn, who worked with others to stop Tarife by taking papers from the president’s table and showed presidents of the map and tickets to illustrate the benefits of the trade. Other assistants, like Larry Kudlow, were less confrontation, but still skeptical of protectionist trade policy.
Mr. Trump’s hard trade advisor Peter Navarro had an oval office shouting at the matches against so -called globalists. Now, return to the second term, Mr. Navarra’s disputes with other advisers are more tinted.
Mr. Beesent was the Hedge Fund’s executive, and Mr. Lutnick was the Wall Street CEO of Cartor Fitzgerald. But they both publicly accepted the tariffs before their job was approved. And whatever they think privately about the tariffs, no one sits over a decisive table from Mr. Trump, arduously arguing against his economic ideas. The arguments of his current team revolve around public messages of tariffs, as well as the exemptions and the scale and time of tariff, but no one disputes the idea of using them in some form.
Neither did Mr. Trump heard a strong disagreement from Capitol Hill. Republican legislators are either transformed into protectionism or are cows against speech. The Wall Street Journal editorial board is a rare institution leaning with the right right, which still consistently causes its access to trade.
Mr. Lutnick, who also oversees the US trade, receives many calls of unhappy business leaders, along with the head of the White House, Susie Wiles and Agriculture Minister, Brooke Rollins.
On March 13, Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Beesent, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, and a few others met in the Navy Observatory with Vice -President JD Vance to discuss a cohesive public message about the economy, in the midst of appeals with allies, according to four people decorated at the meeting.
The White House officials refused to comment on the meeting.
But in a statement given by the White House, Mr. Navarro described Mr. Trump’s advisers as if following his leadership, characterizing them as a “diverse group with complementary skills sets and high levels of trust with names like Beesent, Greer, Hassett and Lutnick discussing behind closed doors and become” one band “
Several exceptions have been assigned. Mrs. Rollins heard from farmers who wanted to exemption for potassium, an important ingredient in fertilizer. Mr. Trump ultimately agreed to a reduced 10 percent tariff, but he was dissatisfied with his return, according to a person who knows about the matter. In a statement, Mrs. Rollins said that the president’s “reduction of tariffs to Kali was a critical step in helping farmers manage and provide key entry costs in the midst of the planting season, at the same time strengthening long -term agricultural trade relations.”
But in many other cases, Mr. Trump seemed far less willing to offer significant exemptions in the industry than he was in his first term.
While some industry managers tried to push themselves during talking to the White House, very little publicly said; Those who earned the anger of Trump’s administration. Those who spoke privately generally imagined every criticism of Mr. Trump between the lavish praise.
Some companies are “intimidated” for pushing on tariffs, cautiously to become a goal, said Mr. Reinsch. “No one wants to go public,” he said, “because they are concerned about the consequences.”
But these companies are still counting on policies that are favored, such as a reduction in tax and deregulation.
