“Nobody but me would do this,” Donald Trump declared on Monday, sitting forward in his blingy Oval Office while the global trading figures spun like a pinball machine score. He scotched rumours that he was considering a pause on his tariff ultimatums.
He warned that China would face a further 50 per cent tariff punishment unless Xi Jinping rescinds their plan to match the US reciprocal tariff figure of 34 per cent. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, sat silently by the president, breaking in only to sing his praises. Outside, a cold rain beat down on Washington. All day, a small, vocal protest chanted over the security barricades at Blair House, the guest residence where Netanyahu waited until he was received in the West Wing.
“Nobody but me would do this,” the US president repeated as though the thought had struck him for the first time, and pleased him.
[ The voice of the Almighty Dollar is shouting stop, Mr TrumpOpens in new window ]
“It would be nice to serve a nice easy term. But we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade. We lose close to two trillion dollars a year on trade. We lost a trillion dollars a year to China. Why would we do that? And then you have to say: is it sustainable? I don’t want them taking five, six hundred billion dollars a year and spending it on their military. I don’t want that. No other president would be willing to do what I’m doing or go through it. Now I don’t mind going through it because I see a beautiful picture at the end.”
How tariff chaos could affect Ireland
Trump is unassailably correct about one thing. It is impossible to imagine any other American president having the chutzpah to brazen out what, as the week deepens, represents a deliberate policy capable of foisting a recession on the national and global economy. The economists remain baffled and aghast.
Trump had pre-empted Monday’s international barrage of scepticism and deeply researched theory by issuing an early morning social media advisory: ‘The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done decades ago. Don’t be weak. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be a PANICAN’ – a Trumpism to denote ‘weak and stupid people’.
The Dow and S&P bled anyway, radically diminishing pension plans that had been buoyant a week ago.
The ‘Panicans’ argued back. Trump’s assertion about that trillion-dollar loss to China was widely rejected.
Last year, the United States bought in some $462 billion in goods from China, mainly on clothing as well as the already-expensive-and-soon-to-be-eye-wateringly-so iPhones and other electronics. Chinese imports from the US were just under $200 billion – including services, which do not feature in the Trump administration’s gripes about fair trade. Stuff; physical stuff is what gets them going.
“We have lost 90,000 plants and factories since Nafta,” the president continued. “The problem is they cheat like crazy. Canada cheats. Mexico cheats.”
[ Why did Irish pharma exports escape the tariff guillotine?Opens in new window ]
Netanyahu listened attentively to all of this. Although the ongoing bloodshed, hostage stand-off and peace deal in Gaza were the focus of many questions in the Oval Office, neither leader had anything new to say. Trump confirmed that the US would hold nuclear talks with Iran this Saturday, offering more foreboding news: “If the talks are not successful with Iran I think Iran is going to be in great danger. And I had to say it. Great danger. Because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
But it was clear that Netanyahu’s hastily arranged trip to Washington was concerned with striking a deal to soften the 17 per cent tariff Israel was slapped with during last week’s ‘Liberation Day’ shock. Just as he was the first leader in the Oval Office after the inauguration, Netanyahu was quick to cosy up again on Monday.
“I think Israel can serve as a model for other countries who should do the same. I’m a free trade champion and free trade should be fair trade. We are not talking about intentions; we are not talking about just words.”
The Trump administration claims the White House switchboard has been jammed with prime ministers and leaders and CEO’s desperate to atone for their tariff sins.
Throughout the day, key figures in the Trump administration gave conflicting directives on the willingness to broker deals. Peter Navarro, the White House senior trade adviser who authored one of the main trade sections in the Project 2025 manifesto, was adamant in a morning interview that the president would not relent. While Trump golfed this weekend, Navarro got into a high-profile social media spat with Elon Musk, who has lost some $20 billion and counting since the tariffs were announced.
Scott Bessent, the secretary of treasury, said that almost 70 countries have approached the US and that he would be tasked with opening negotiations with Japan. But there is unlikely to be any tariff agreement in place before the tariffs are due to take effect on Wednesday. The European Union, meanwhile, was once again subject to Trump’s ire as he confirmed that Monday’s offer of zero-for-zero tariffs on cars was nothing like enough.
“No, it’s not. The EU has been very tough over the years. I always say it was formed to really do damage to the United States on trade. That’s the reason it was formed. It was formed with all of the countries of Europe, I guess most of ‘em. And it was formed to create a little bit of a monopoly situation, to create a unified force against the United States for trade.”
The attitude is a continuation of the EU hostility that has been a consistent theme of the Trump administration. But this week, Trump’s ire is directed at the world in general.
The cancellation of a planned press conference with Netanyahu in the East Room led to speculation that Trump was, for the first time since resuming office, anxious to avoid the spotlight. But as he held court in the Oval Office in another long, live-broadcast informal question and answer, he seemed to be enjoying this moment of conjuring up extreme international dread in return for his vision of a United States manufacturing renaissance.
The reprimands of financial titans and foreign leaders have done nothing other than convince the president and his advisers that their idea is working. Reason won’t sway them: it remains to be seen whether further damage on the New York Stock Exchange forces Trump to blink before the week closes.
That explicit threat to China, to impose that staggering 50 per cent additional tariff, which, along with the 34 per cent Liberation Day tariff and the pre-existing ‘fentanyl flow’ tariff of 20 per cent would mean an import tax of 104 per cent on all Chinese goods, pushes the issue into a different realm. It leaves what is a highly volatile moment on the brink of what hedge-fund billionaire and prominent Trump backer Bill Ackman neatly described as “a self-induced economic nuclear winter”.
But Trump, it appears, cares nothing for the doomsayers.
“I’m not worried about it. They want to be in the hands of the US. They don’t want to be in the hands of the Chinese. You know I’ve been talking about it for 35 years about how our country is being ripped off.”
Thirty-five years ago, though, the world wasn’t listening to Donald Trump. It is listening now.
