Trade Globalists in White House Fail to Stop Trump’s ‘America First’ Tariffs

The trade globalist wing of the White House has failed in its efforts to stop President Trump from following through on his promise to protect American industries and jobs by imposing tariffs on imported foreign products.

On Thursday, the White House announced that Trump is set to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a ten percent tariff on imported aluminum. The move follows through on Trump’s commitment to voters that he would be “tough” on China, which has been accused of dumping cheap foreign products in the U.S., undermining the country’s manufacturing base.

White House adviser Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Defense Secretary James Mattis attempted but failed to stop Trump from imposing the steel and aluminum tariffs.

Cohn and Mnuchin — the West Wing’s biggest proponents of free trade — tried to get Trump to water down his actions against China and on trade, in general, as Breitbart News reported.

The two trade globalists are so opposed to the tariffs sought by Trump and his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that White House officials were allegedly telling the media that an announcement on trade was canceled.

Mattis, like Cohn and Mnuchin, allegedly opposes the tariffs as well:

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/969203979245662208

Axios’s Jonathan Swan characterized Trump’s “America First” move on trade as “a giant ‘F you’ to” Cohn, Mnuchin, Mattis, and the other members of the trade globalist wing of the White House.

https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/969276501689430016

Ross recommended the tariffs, as Breitbart News reported, to Trump – noting that the goal is to increase domestic steel production to 80 percent from its current rate of 73 percent, while also increasing the American production of aluminum to 80 percent from its current rate of only 48 percent.

Trump loyalist and adviser Corey Lewandowski told Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM 125 The Patriot Channel this past weekend that he believed the president would be moving in this direction with trade, noting that it boils down to bringing manufacturing jobs, which were decimated and outsourced through various free trade agreements, back to the country.

“What you heard from the president during the campaign and what you’ve now seen from the president, as the president of the last 14 months, is an individual who wants to make sure we’re manufacturing back here in the United States,” Lewandowski said.

“If other countries are dumping their products on U.S. soil because they’re subsidizing them, whether that’s steel or aluminum, or anything else, this president has been very clear: We’re going to have fair trade. It’s not going to be free trade, it’s going to be fair trade,” Lewandowski continued. “We’re going to have a level playing field.”

As Breitbart News reported, Americans are increasingly supportive of tariffs in order to protect the U.S. and its workers from globalization.

According to Rasmussen Reports, roughly 50 percent of Americans said the federal government should “place tariffs on goods from countries that pay very low wages to their workers,” as opposed to only 26 percent of Americans who said tariffs should not be imposed on foreign countries.