Some of Donald Trump’s friends in Washington suddenly sound nervous that he has the keys to the economy. Some even talk about shouting them away.
There are some efforts to make the legal authority of the US President to resign, to define tariffs that are now used in an unprecedented manner.
These efforts are a long shot. The most important thing is whether they will happen, at least not yet. What they reveal is most important.
And what they reveal is nervousness in Trump allies – on the Capitol Hill, which was apparently just as stunned by the scope of its tariffs as the Wall Street.
Take Ted Cruz. The Texas Senator says that he is doing well when Trump does this as a negotiating current. But he fears that Trump could actually be serious to keep the tariffs in place forever.
If these tariffs stay with allies 30 days, 60 days, 90 days – still damage the economy – it is a terrible result, says Cruz. And he fears that this could actually be the plan.
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He made a surprisingly strong prediction of what this would mean in the intermediate elections next year if the tariffs caused a recession.
“It would most likely be politically a bloodbath,” said Cruz in his podcast on Friday. “They would be exposed to a democratic house and they could even be exposed to a democratic Senate.”
Wall Street did not expect Trump to be tracked, said Cruz, a point that was underlined this week by the striking decline of the S&P 500 index of 10 percent.
The Republican also pushed back on the idea that these tariffs will only violate foreigners or foreign companies. He said a large American car company told him that it is now expected to increase the average price of a vehicle by $ 4,500 up to this summer.
At his point it is not clear what Trump’s goal is. The white house sends mixed news.
On the one hand, the official line is that these tariffs are largely permanent and that they increase tax revenue. But Trump also talks about the negotiation with Canada. On Friday he suggested that he could do the same with Vietnam after offering to remove his tariffs.
The stock markets around the world went back for a second day after US President Donald Trump’s global tariffs had been announced and officials from the White House offered contradictory assumptions as to whether the tariffs were a negotiating tactics.
Cruz is not only in his dismay.
A few Republicans said CNN that they – quickly on evidence – were that this is just a negotiating rope.
Wisconsin’s senator, Ron Johnson, said: “At the moment I am (Trump) the advantage of doubt, but I’m worried.”
One of them, Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina, who is exposed to a tough response campaign, said that the farmers in his state were a harvest from bankruptcy: “You have no time.”
Baby steps in the congress
What do these senators do about it?
After all, the US constitution gives the congress power over tariffs. But since the Second World War it has allowed the President to impose it in an emergency.
Now a number of legislators are talking about the determination of limits. The efforts are mainly cited by Democrats, but there are indications that some Republicans want to help.
It started with the four that decided to revoke Trump’s tariffs on Canada. This measure passed the Senate this week, but appears to be doomed in the house.
In the house, however, there is an effort to force a vote on the measure. Democrats have started A complicated process Push the problem onto the floor.
In addition, the longest reigning Republican in the Senate, the third party to succeed the President, sponsors his own legislation to publish them. Chuck Grassley’s measure Would require the consent of the congress for tariffs, or they would expire in 60 days.
It is worth noting that these measures express it easily, long shots. Even if they have come through both congress chambers through a political miracle, it is practically unimaginable that they would receive enough voices to withstand a Trump veto.
It is the context that tells.
Democrats smell a political winner
There was no doubt about which party on Friday afternoon believed that she had the upper hand on this topic. Democrats are now hungry to speak tariffs.
Since the election of last year, they have desperately concentrated on a message that they can concentrate on after being opposite.
The party’s top figures organized their second press conference of the week on this topic on this topic on the Capitol Hill on Friday and announced the efforts to arrange a measure for a budget law on the Senate.
The Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said of Trump’s tariffs: “One of the stupidest decisions he has ever made as President – and that says a lot.”
Schumer promoted his party’s line and described the tariffs as a class problem: a DE facto tax on the middle class to achieve income for tax cuts for billionaires.
“It’s a shame,” he said.
Senator Ben Ray Luján from New Mexico said that the Republicans never talked about economic responsibility again. “Because they throw it out of the door,” he said.
And on a day on which the stock market fell, and the US relationships in the ruins, and the world spoke about the retaliation, here is another meaningful sign.
The story hardly rated a mention everywhere on the FOX News website on Friday afternoon and only occurred occasionally on her TV network. It was not difficult to say who saw this problem as a political winner on Friday. And who didn’t do it.
