CNN
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President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs are facing blowback from all corners – a market sell-off, foreign retaliation, anger from corporate America and skepticism from the Federal Reserve chairman and some allies in Congress. So far, the president is defiant in the face of the global turbulence.
After a day and a half of mixed messages from Trump and top administration officials over whether the tariffs were the start of a negotiation or a more permanent change to US economic policy, Trump didn’t use Friday to deliver clarity. He didn’t venture out into the country to sell his plan from the floor of an American factory or to showcase a business or community that he believes will benefit from the tariffs.
Instead, the president chose to begin his day on the golf course in Florida.
The financial markets were already falling by the time he left his Mar-a-Lago resort for a short ride to the Trump International Golf Club. He waved to onlookers as his presidential limousine rolled through the gates.
While the president has traveled to Florida nearly every weekend since taking office, he chose to leave the White House a day earlier than normal, creating a split-screen of being on a golf course in one of the wealthiest enclaves in America as economic worries deepened.
US stocks plunged a second straight day after China said Friday it would impose 34% reciprocal tariffs on imports of US goods, a development that put a spotlight on just how much is outside of Trump’s control as his economic team tries to pull off an unprecedented high-wire act after launching the most expansive and disruptive tariffs in more than a century. The Dow closed in correction, down more than 10% from its record high in December.
A White House official said the president’s “full attention” was on the tariff policy Friday, noting he continued to send updates about conversations he had with foreign leaders. The official dismissed the suggestion that Trump was rattled by the market reaction, saying the president has long warned of short-term pain created by his tariff vision and America First agenda.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump said countries were already coming to him looking to make deals, suggesting he was open to negotiating with foreign leaders before the tariff deadline arrived Friday at midnight. But his message Friday morning sounded different.
“To the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change,” Trump wrote in a social media message posted shortly before he arrived at the golf course. “This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before!!!”
Mixed messages and market chaos
The fluid nature of Trump’s own view of the purpose tied to his new tariffs threatened to upend an explicit effort by his top economic officials to deliver a unified message that the reciprocal tariffs would be implemented on April 9, period – despite the fact that Trump’s own advisers were divided before the announcement over how far to go.
Behind the scenes, it reflected the necessity of delivering certainty to a market consumed by anything but for nearly two weeks. The need for unity was stressed to allies and surrogates in talking points circulated on Capitol Hill on Thursday. But message discipline – or lack thereof – didn’t address the other looming threat made acutely real on Friday: retaliation.
While the president sent several messages throughout the day, an adviser said Trump was intentionally not speaking publicly or taking questions on camera as the trading markets remained opened on Friday. Even though the White House has kept up a strident defense of the tariff strategy, a rising sense of frustration and anger at the universal global reaction was troubling.
“The president isn’t guided by the market, but of course he watches it like everyone else,” a Republican political adviser to Trump told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid discussing West Wing deliberations.
One person who spoke to Trump amid the market sell-off on Thursday described the president as largely sanguine about his plan, suggesting the tariffs were only one aspect of a broader economic policy that was still coming into shape. But another person who is in touch with the president said he is getting close to his threshold for withstanding drops in the market.
Many outside allies of the president have been confused at the messaging surrounding the tariffs, which veered from calling them “reciprocal” to pledging they would be “generous” to the eventual plan, which was a different calculation altogether.
“It didn’t help they tariffed islands with no people and no exports,” one ally to the president said.
A central question was how much Trump was open to negotiating and how aware he was of the deep criticism. The White House fielded calls from business owners and industry lobbyists, but it was unclear how aware Trump was of the blowback and whether that would shape his posture in the days leading up to next week’s second tariff deadline.
A 10% tariff on all US imports will go into effect on Saturday, with even higher tariffs slated for April 9.
Trump criticized Beijing for retaliating against his tariffs, claiming that China “panicked” after Trump unveiled an additional 34% tariff on all Chinese goods imported into the US, on top of a 20% tariff previously imposed with the goal of curbing fentanyl from China to the US.
The Trump administration has encouraged countries ensnared in the tariffs not to panic – but to pick up the phone. Trump has criticized those – like Canada and China – that have pledged to retaliate.
“China played it wrong, they panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do!” Trump posted on truth social after Beijing unveiled 34% retaliatory tariffs on the US in response to the added tariff on Chinese imports that brings total charges to 54%.
Despite adamance by senior trade hand Peter Navarro and Vice President JD Vance that the new tariffs represent a permanent reset in global trade, others in Trump’s orbit have acknowledged the president’s natural inclination to strike deals.
“I wouldn’t want to be the last country to try to negotiate with @realdonaldtrump,” his son Eric posted on X. “The first to negotiate will win – the last will absolutely lose. I have seen this movie my entire life.”
Some countries are trying to get to the front of that line. Trump is actively negotiating with Vietnam, India, and Israel to negotiate bespoke trade deals ahead of the new tariff deadline, a senior advisor told CNN. Such discussions could provide an off-ramp for Trump – if the two sides reach agreement.
In a social media post, Trump said the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Tô Lâm, reached out with a proposal to “cut their tariffs down to zero” if a mutual agreement can be struck.
The president on Friday also took the unusual step of trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, continuing a long-running critique of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“He is always ‘late,’ but he could now change his image, and quickly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Cut interest rates, Jerome, and stop playing politics.”
Powell spoke at an event in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday, where he said the central bank was taken aback by the scope of Trump’s tariffs.
“We face a highly uncertain outlook with elevated risks of both higher unemployment and higher inflation,” Powell said. “While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent.”
Corporate America, meanwhile, is irate, according to conversations with a dozen chief executive officers.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been fielding angry calls from executives, some of whom are weighing whether to sue the administration over the tariffs – and the national emergency Trump has asserted justifies them. A stronger-than-expected jobs report on Friday, one executive told CNN, should be seen by a judge if there is litigation as further proof no such national emergency exists.
Companies have been reticent to attack the administration’s policies in court or on the airwaves for fear of rhetorical attacks – or worse. When one company suggested privately to Trump officials that their proposed tariffs would simply raise prices on goods with no effect on their factory locations, the official suggested they would double the tariff to get the company to move.
Bessent is among the many Trump officials who had been advocating for a more nuanced approach to tariffs than what Trump unveiled, a policy that was immediately met with skepticism for how it was engineered.
After the rollout – and a round of interview with major television networks – the newly minted Treasury secretary found himself in awkward company as he joined a reunion dinner at Café Milano with most former Treasury secretaries – a bipartisan tradition going back decades. “Liberation Day,” according to sources, quickly became the subject of conversation, though the scheduling was unintentional.
A second CEO close to the White House says the breadth and extremity of the president’s tariff policy was shocking, especially considering how many companies have already adjusted their businesses to align with Trump’s perceived policy goals.
“It was his first administration that caused [manufacturers] to move from China to Vietnam,” the CEO said. “Now, we’re punishing them, too. There’s no endgame.”
Trump trained his anger on China during his first term, leading many manufacturers like Nike, Gap, Levi’s, and Dell to begin shifting operations to Vietnam, in order to save costs and set up shop in friendlier territories. But now Trump is hitting Vietnam with a 46% tariff, leaving many executives exasperated – and planning to raise prices rather than relocate yet again.
In the words of another executive: “We’re just going to have to make fewer shirts and sell them for more money.”
Despite objections from many within his Cabinet over unnecessarily angering allies and ratting global markets, Trump’s views on tariffs are ossified – and amplified by his close counselor Navarro. Feedback from dissenters has fallen on deaf ears.
“The problem is, it’s the president’s view and it’s not widely shared,” said the executive close to the White House of Trump’s commitment to lowering trade deficits. “On this issue, he seems immovable.”
On Wall Street, group chats on messaging apps have lit up over how or whether to publicly speak out against a president who has shown a penchant for retribution. Other private sector executives are debating whether to hire a Trump-friendly lobbyist to try to seek an exemption from the policy.
After weeks of internal debate over the reciprocal tariffs – and frequent mention by the president of his love for the tool – many of his allies have grown weary of discussing them and feel it’s time to turn attention to his tax plans.
In part, that is because they believe the tax cuts – particularly eliminating taxes on tips and overtime, both promises he made as a candidate – are easier to understand and more of a political winner than the tariffs, which are complicated and run the risk of raising prices.
That tax plan is still a work in progress on Capitol Hill, where narrow majorities and divergent policy views have already bubbled up during negotiations over the procedural mechanism that will be used to move it through the House and Senate on a partisan basis.
But the effort needed from Trump’s economic team to both put in place historic tariffs and get a tax bill over the finish line also spilled into the internal scramble leading up to Trump’s announcement as advisers grappled with whether to use some kind of universal baseline tariff or setting a country-by-country number that captured a measurement trade economists in both parties panned as nonsensical.
On Monday, Trump asked for the list that would form the basis of the Rose Garden chart he would hold up. Throughout, two of Trump’s top advisors shuffled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to negotiate with congressional Republicans over the pathways to their critical tax proposal.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who had successfully made the case for reciprocal tariffs to Trump for months, and Bessent, were also running point on the tax efforts. They provided little intel on tariffs to desperate Republicans on the Hill during their visits.
But in their absence, two of Trump’s most strident tariff supporters – Navarro and Lutnick – helped shape where Trump would ultimately land.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
