Donald Trump’s reversal on most of his tariffs had a pair of CNN anchors offering up some colorful analogies for the president’s actions.
Trump, who denied that he had caved to pressure from the business community but cited bond market chaos as one of the main reasons for his decision, later claimed credit for Wednesday afternoon’s jump in the stock market.
CNN’s evening lineup, however, wasn’t buying it.
On The Lead, anchor Jake Tapper first asked Richard Quest of CNN International about the exception to Trump’s pause in tariffs: China.
Rather than alleviate the levies on the U.S.’ third-largest trading partner, the president increased his tariffs on the nation to 125 percent, citing Beijing’s retaliatory actions.
“If you were a betting man, do you think China and the United States are going to come to an agreement?” Tapper asked.
Quest looked at the issue from multiple angles.
“I think China is going to watch to see whether or not you sort of do tit, but the ‘for tat’ gets lower and lower and lower until you end up somewhere in the middle,” he said, noting the previous tariff was 104 percent.
That difference could be small enough for China to “live with,” Quest suggested, “because at some point one side or the other is going to telegraph that they are ready to meet.”
On the other hand, he went on, “the Chinese statement overnight is that they are in this to the bitter end.”
“And that’s the worrying part, because China may have just written off the United States for the foreseeable future and is just going to go head-to-head, toe-for-toe. We’re going to have to wait for a few more hours to see if they match the 125 from Donald Trump,” he said.
Tapper, noting Wednesday’s market gains, wondered if Trump tanking the markets and then jolting them up again was akin to “pushing an old lady down the stairs and then wanting credit for helping her back up at the bottom.”
Quest replied with a parallel line of thought.
“I was going to sort of say it’s like the arsonist calling the fire brigade and then taking credit—a similar sort of idea,” he said.
Trump’s about-face, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seemingly pleased with, had its usual cast of defenders on the right, who adopted the view that it was intentional all along.
Yet even Fox viewers got a dose of reality Wednesday night when Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino told his colleagues that Trump’s so-called “art of the deal” strategy was actually just him capitulating.
“Let’s be clear about what happened, who capitulated here and why,” he said. “I don’t want to say this because I am a patriot, I am an American, but it is the White House who capitulated, based on everything I hear and all my sources.”
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