Trump Issues Public Response to European Countries ‘Dying to Make a Deal’ on Tariff’s – He’s Got Them Right Where He Wants Them

Speaking to the media on Sunday, President Donald Trump continued to emphasize that he stood behind his “Liberation Day” tariff package and said the tariffs were having the desired effect.

“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on his way back from Florida, according to the Associated Press.

”They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country. We’re not going to do that, because to me a deficit is a loss.

“We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even,” he added.

The assurance that this was all part of the plan — or at least that it wasn’t having unexpected adverse effects — was one of several over the weekend as the media spent much of Sunday evening tarrying upon lower market opens in Asia and Australia early Monday their time.

“China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close. They, and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly,” Trump said in a Saturday post.

“We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast! THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Then again, on Sunday evening: “We have massive Financial Deficits with China, the European Union, and many others. The only way this problem can be cured is with TARIFFS, which are now bringing Tens of Billions of Dollars into the U.S.A.,” Trump wrote.

“They are already in effect, and a beautiful thing to behold. The Surplus with these Countries has grown during the ‘Presidency’ of Sleepy Joe Biden. We are going to reverse it, and reverse it QUICKLY. Some day people will realize that Tariffs, for the United States of America, are a very beautiful thing!”

Whether Republicans would “hang tough” is another thing entirely.

Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No. 2 Republican in the upper chamber, said that Trump was “doing what he has every right to do” but that “there is concern, and there’s concern across the country. People are watching the markets.”

“There’ll be a discussion in the Senate,” Barrasso said. “We’ll see which way the discussion goes.”

Barrasso was likely responding to legislation to end the president’s domain in the arena of tariffs.

In the lower chamber, Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, indicated on Sunday that he’d be introducing a House version of a Senate bill that would require presidents to seek approval from lawmakers within 60 days for new tariffs.

“We gave some of that power to the executive branch. I think, in hindsight, that was a mistake,” Bacon said.

It’s worth noting that much of this is lawmakers being spooked by a temporary fall in a stock market that was, one might readily argue, unreasonably optimistic given American corporate fundamentals and their reliance on trade imbalances without consideration for holistic economic growth.

Another criticism came from Clinton-era Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who argued that negotiations defeated the point of the tariffs.

If “it’s just making a deal” to reduce tariffs, Summers said, “then we don’t raise any revenue nor do we get any businesses to relocate to the United States.

“If it’s a permanent revenue source and trying to get businesses to relocate to the United States, then we’re going to have these tariffs permanently. So the president can’t have it both ways.”

However, you can’t negotiate without having a baseline to negotiate from, and the easiest way to do that is to set tariffs, then have talks with countries willing to make serious strides to allowing American exports into their market at a reasonable rate. Constantly threatening to introduce unpleasant tariffs until foreign leaders come to the table and make a reasonable deal is just that: threats, not action. It’s redoing American strategy since the 1990s, all carrot with a vague stick at the other end, which might theoretically land on their industry but, in practice, never ends up doing so.

Well, this time it did — and our allies are coming to the table, with the AP reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and leaders in other key markets were looking toward discussions on the measures.

And if it did, good. It’s almost as if the same press, which never forgets to mention that Trump is the author of “The Art of the Deal,” forgot to read it; his position has been, and has always been, that if you want a 50-50 deal with reciprocal benefits, you have to start negotiating at 90-10 and then move downward. If the other guy ends up looking smart as part of the deal, you can call it a win-win.

But in the past, our deals have been 10-90, to use Trump’s own rubric — and we’ve been expected to swallow it, because cheap goods from China and other developing countries is supposed to offset it. To the extent this is sustainable, it’s sustainable if it benefits the laptop warrior elite class. This class — which, tellingly, is also the class from which the Occupy Wall Street movement took hold — brays, paradoxically, about wealth inequality in one breath and the state of their stock portfolio over the past week the next.

And this all raises the question: Why are other countries allowed to erect these barriers and exert pressure on foreign governments, but we aren’t? We’re apparently supposed to be a self-flagellating, self-defeating hegemon, both in military and economic matters, and woe to anyone who tries to stop it.

There shouldn’t be any shock over this, particularly since the Republicans have a clear path to the midterms and the administration had promised this would happen. They’ve also promised to be undeterred by mock horror from both sides of the aisle (“The tariffs are coming. Of course they are,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said) and Congress appealing to the donor class. If Cory Booker wants to break his record and speak for 36 hours straight, great, go for it. Don’t blame the White House, however, for doing what administrations past have promised but also never had the guts to go forward with.

Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.