President Trump will unveil further details by the end of the week related to his plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the White House said Wednesday, hours after the president’s top economic adviser resigned reportedly over his frustrations with the proposal.
“We are still on pace for an announcement on that at the end of this week,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. “It’s a complicated process and we want to make sure every ‘I’ is dotted and every ‘T’ is crossed.”
The administration has been pressed for particulars by Republican lawmakers, many of whom expressed concerns last Friday after Trump abruptly announced his plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports to the United States. Trump also floated a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports, and has since said that accommodations could be made for Canada and Mexico if NAFTA negotiations move in a desirable direction.
Trump’s decision to slap steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports was seen as the last straw for National Economic Council Chairman Gary Cohn, who resigned late Tuesday after failing to nab a victory by convincing the president to avoid his protectionist instincts.
Sanders said Cohn will leave on good terms in the coming weeks and is likely to continue serving as an outside adviser to the president.
“He’s been an integral member of the administration and he’s going to continue to be a voice to the president and certainly someone he can talk to and lean on from the outside,” she told Fox News on Wednesday.
She declined to say which candidates are being considered to replace Cohn, but claimed the president “has got a number of people he can choose from.”
