United States President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to change course on his tariff plan came “from the heart” and was done without consulting lawyers, he said.
Trump announced on Wednesday, in a surprise Truth Social post, that the U.S. would be dropping its so-called reciprocal tariffs on numerous trading partners that had entered into force earlier in the day, and would instead charge only the 10 percent levies that came in last week.
“Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it,” Trump mused at the Oval Office on Wednesday. “I think it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning,” Trump said, adding: “Just wrote it up, I didn’t — we didn’t have the use of — we didn’t have access to lawyers … We wrote it up from our hearts, right? It was written from the heart, and I think it was well written too.”
Trump wrote his Truth Social post together with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to Lutnick. The announcement appeared to come as a surprise to other Republican lawmakers.
Bond markets reacted negatively following the implementation of Trump’s tariffs, raising the specter of higher costs on government borrowing. Markets worldwide endured days of mayhem, which will not have been lost on billionaire Wall Street exec Lutnick and hedge fund manager Bessent.
Markets instantly responded positively to Trump’s tariff about turn, with stocks of the “Magnificent Seven” top U.S. tech companies set to gain more than $1 trillion — roughly the size of the economy of the Netherlands — on Wednesday.
Bessent, who was first out to bat in front of the media after Trump’s unanticipated announcement, said the change of tack wasn’t driven by market volatility, and was instead about a desire to tailor new trade deals with affected trading partners that have been flooding the White House with requests to negotiate.
“It is just a processing problem,” said Bessent. “Each one of these solutions is going to be bespoke, it is going to take some time, and President Trump wants to be personally involved, so that’s why we’re giving the 90-day pause.”
Trump contradicted this in later comments. “I was watching the bond market,” he said at the White House. “I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.”
“Over the last few days, it looked pretty glum — to, I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history. That’s a pretty big change,” Trump said.
“No other president would have done what I did.”
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