Trump’s economic messaging is spooking some of his own advisers

Donald Trump’s team has received a flood of calls from business executives concerned about mixed messaging on tariffs.

US President Donald Trump flanked by Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, David Sacks at a White House Crypto Summit in Washington last week. Picture: AFP

President Trump’s stop-and-start trade policy and uneven economic messaging have rattled some of his own allies, triggering a flood of calls from business executives, concerns from Republican lawmakers and tension in the White House.

Senior officials, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, have received panicked calls from chief executives and lobbyists, who have urged the administration to calm jittery markets by outlining a more predictable tariff agenda, according to people familiar with the discussions. Many in the business community have abandoned efforts to get the president to reverse course on trade, instead pleading with the White House for clarity on his approach, the people said.

In a meeting Monday in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president and his top advisers huddled with the chief executive officers of International Business Machines, Qualcomm, HP and other tech companies. Some of the CEOs voiced their concerns about Trump’s tariffs, warning that they could hurt their industry, according to a person who attended the meeting. Trump told reporters that attendees at the meeting talked about investing in the US.

The mixed messages from the president and his advisers have raised concerns among some Republicans that Trump lacks a cohesive economic plan. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week the economy needed a “detox.” Trump has acknowledged that the tariffs could result in economic pain for consumers and, in an interview Sunday, declined to rule out a recession, accelerating a sell-off on Wall Street on Monday that wiped out all gains in major stock indexes since Election Day in November. On Tuesday, the president played down the possibility of a recession, but underscored his commitment to far-reaching tariffs.

All the while, Trump and his team have made frequent adjustments to his trade policies, announcing last-minute exemptions and reversals.

“It has been a horrific start for the economic policy team,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director who now runs the conservative American Action Forum.

Trump’s aggressive approach to tariffs has unnerved some Trump administration economic officials, including staff on the National Economic Council, who are concerned that tariffs and uncertainty over trade policy are tanking the stock market and fuelling price increases on everything from energy to construction materials, people familiar with the matter said. The president’s economic advisers have warned him that tariffs could hurt the market and economic growth, but he has largely been undeterred, the people said.

President Trump’s trade agenda is being overseen by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Picture: AFP

The White House said Trump’s economic advisers aren’t divided. “Every member of the Trump administration is playing from the same playbook — President Trump’s playbook — to enact an America First agenda of tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation, and the unleashing of American energy,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Desai confirmed that senior officials have taken calls from corporate leaders, adding that National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has talked to nearly a dozen CEOs in the past two days.

The spate of tariff proclamations and the resulting economic convulsions have brought to the surface long-simmering tensions among members of Trump’s economic team.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the hard-charging former chief executive at the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, is overseeing Trump’s expansive trade agenda and has regularly appeared on cable television to discuss the matter. He has at times not fully looped in some of the president’s other economic advisers, according to people familiar with the matter, including Hassett, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and officials at the Council of Economic Advisers.

In one instance last week, Lutnick went on Fox News and announced that Canada and Mexico could soon strike a deal with the US to avoid some of the 25 per cent tariffs Trump had imposed over fentanyl trafficking. That surprised Greer and CEA staff, leaving them rushing to come up with a solution, eventually persuading Trump to grant a one-month pause on tariffs for goods that comply with a US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, according to people familiar with the matter.

US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick (L) and US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent (R) speak during the White House Crypto Summit. Picture: AFP

Bessent has made clear to members of Trump’s team that he wants to be a principal voice on economic policy across the administration, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Secretary Lutnick’s long and immensely successful private sector career makes him an integral addition to the Trump administration’s trade and economic team,” Desai said, pointing to manufacturing job gains and investment commitments from companies such as Apple and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

On CBS News on Tuesday night, Lutnick defended the administration’s rollout of its trade policy, saying: “It is not chaotic, and the only one who thinks it’s chaotic is someone who’s being silly.”

Nearly two months into Trump’s presidency, his advisers say he is more determined than ever to carry out his far-reaching tariff agenda, despite increasing pressure to change course.

In Trump’s first term, he watched the markets almost hourly, and even a temporary dip could lead to a change in policy, former senior administration officials said. This time, he is still interested in the markets, but is less inclined to abandon his tariff plans, though he has delayed the implementation of some duties, an administration official said.

Trump’s first-term National Economic Council director, Gary Cohn, and others at times opposed the president’s tariff proposals. This time, most of Trump’s current advisers aren’t trying to dissuade him from invoking tariffs, officials said. Instead, they are advocating for more targeted tariffs with exemptions for key sectors.

For example, Hassett and others successfully lobbied Trump to abandon his campaign pledge for an across-the-board tariff on all US trading partners, and to opt instead for a reciprocal trade action that would allow room for other nations to negotiate lower tariffs with the US, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Trump’s reciprocal tariff move, which seeks to equalise US tariffs with the duties and nontariff barriers charged by other nations, is set to be announced in April. But that initiative could take six months or more to implement fully, people familiar with the policy previously told The Wall Street Journal.

Elon Musk (L) waves as he walks with Howard Lutnick (R) and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (C). Picture: AFP

The uncertainty over tariff policy is also frustrating some Trump allies on Capitol Hill, a growing number of whom are worried about the economic ramifications of tariffs.

“We don’t know what this is gonna look like tomorrow,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), adding that he is “very frustrated” by the uncertainty that the tariff agenda is foisting on farmers and businesses in his state.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the stop-and-start nature of the tariffs is contributing to stock market losses and difficulties in corporate planning. “Business hates uncertainty,” he said.

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.), a Trump confidant and a first-term ambassador to Japan, acknowledged that the markets are “trying to digest” the messages emanating from the White House on tariffs, but held out hope that certainty could be on the horizon.

“I think once we get these [tariff] announcements done and the market can actually sort out exactly what they mean, that will hopefully calm things,” he said.

Trump spoke Tuesday to the Business Roundtable, an influential group of corporate executives. A person familiar with the event’s planning said several executives changed their plans to attend.

“Swinging from one extreme to another is not the right policy approach,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told an energy conference in Houston on Monday. “We have allocated capital that’s out there for decades, and so we really need consistent and durable policy.”

The Wall Street Journal