Inside Trump’s Trade War: How the Protectionists Beat the Free Traders
From the administration’s early days, free-trade-advocate Gary Cohn battled tariff proponent Peter Navarro—while the president waited
Mr. Cohn at times accused Mr. Navarro of lying to the president about the effect of his proposals and often laced his accusations with a colorful round of expletives, said White House officials who witnessed their debates.
Mr. Navarro, who rarely swears, would often offer an understated response. “Now, now Gary,” he would tell Mr. Cohn after an interruption, these people said. “You’ve had your piece.”
.. Mr. Trump brought the debate to an abrupt end. “We’re going to be instituting tariffs,” he said to a mostly startled audience of executives and senior aides. “Perhaps some of you folks will be here” for the announcement, he added.
.. Mr. Trump’s signing of new 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum imports are poised to reshape the U.S. economy. It is the most significant break in decades from the country’s traditional free-trade stance and has threatened to widen a split within the Republican Party
.. The president’s decision to impose tariffs illustrates how quickly priorities can be set inside the White House, the extent to which the rapid staff turnover has influenced policy, and Mr. Trump’s penchant for keeping those who resist him off-balance.
.. Mr. Cohn had some success slowing Mr. Trump’s protectionist instincts, but miscalculated on his ability to sway him over time. While Mr. Trump allowed rivalries around the issue, he consistently signaled his intentions. Ultimately, Mr. Trump cut Mr. Cohn out of one of final meetings, and the administrations’s loudest free-trade voice quit days later.
.. Some Republican lawmakers are now deciding whether to recalibrate their relationship with Mr. Trump. One option under discussion is to block funding for agencies that enforce tariffs.
.. he sent conflicting signals about the direction he was leaning. In a Journal interview last year, he said: “Hey, I’m a nationalist and a globalist. I’m both.”
.. Mr. Cohn was positioned to play a long game, consistently offering the president alternatives to broad tariffs. Early in the administration, the former Wall Street executive pushed for a border-adjusted tax, an idea from House Speaker Paul Ryan, to help close trade deficits.
.. Mr. Trump rejected that plan in part because he thought it was more difficult to market. Voters implicitly understand slapping tariffs on foreign countries, he told adviser
.. Mr. Navarro, was rising.
Although confined to a small office across the street from the White House without even an administrative assistant, he had found a new way to get his message to the president—through television.
.. A month ago, Mr. Trump picked up the phone and called an aide to say he had just seen Mr. Navarro on TV and was impressed. “He liked the way Peter presented the issues on TV, and he wanted Peter to represent the president on TV,” the aide said.
.. A powerful player in keeping the nationalists in check was a White House aide, Rob Porter, the staff secretary. Mr. Porter worked to isolate Mr. Navarro
.. Mr. Porter’s absence has helped spring leaks in the rigorous process John Kelly has sought to impose on the West Wing. But in recent weeks, both Corey Lewandowski, whom Mr. Trump fired as his campaign manager in 2016, and Sebastian Gorka, an outspoken White House aide whom Mr. Kelly fired in August, have had West Wing meetings with Mr. Trump
.. Mr. Kelly’s process broke down again last week when Mr. Navarro and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross secured an audience with Mr. Trump on Feb. 28—after most other aides had left for the night—and hatched a plan to impose the new tariffs as quickly as possible
.. Mr. Cohn was upset that his opponents had, in Mr. Cohn’s words, “hijacked” the policy process, one official said, making their own private case to Mr. Trump while other relevant officials weren’t in the room.