Conservative economic analyst Larry Kudlow predicted Sunday that “all of Europe” will end up being exempt from President Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum into the U.S.
“[At] the beginning of this week, everyone was worried about tariffs and rightly so. By the end of the week, John, the tariffs [were] basically gone with the exception of maybe China and a few countries,” Kudlow told John Catsimatidis on New York’s AM 970, listing Canada, Mexico and Australia among those trading partners granted a reprieve from the tariffs.
“I guarantee you, all of Europe is going to wind up being exempt. And I bet you our allies in Asia will wind up being exempt. China may be the only one,” Kudlow continued.
Kudlow said markets reacted positively to “the exclusion argument” because it lifted “the threat of protectionism and the threat of downstream economic losses from steel users and consumers.”
“It’s a Trumpian way of negotiating. You knock them in the teeth and get their attention, and then you kind of work out a deal,” he said. “That’s what he’s done. My hat’s off to him. He had me really worried, now I’m not.”
While disliking blanket tariffs, Kudlow also said he still considered China “a key problem” for the U.S. and that he would like to see Trump “to go after China in economic terms.”
“I would not be opposed to targeted tariffs on China,” Kudlow said, specifically in reference in technology, “all with an eye toward stopping this idea of stealing our intellectual property.”
Trump signed two orders last week that imposed a 25 percent tariff to most steel imports and a 10 percent tariff to most aluminum imports.
The former CNBC host is rumored to be considered as a possible replacement for former White House chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, who announced his departure from the Trump administration this week.
