Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson met with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro for about an hour and 15 minutes on Wednesday to discuss President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which Johnson opposes.
Johnson told THE WEEKLY STANDARD the two had “a good exchange of ideas,” during which he asked Navarro for more precise information regarding the White House’s reasoning for its unilaterally imposed national security tariffs of 25 percent and 10 percent on foreign steel and aluminum. “We agreed to continue to dialogue,” said Johnson. “I want to be supportive of the overall goal.”
The senator’s state of Wisconsin has been hit hard by the tariffs, as well as an array of retaliatory tariffs that other countries imposed in response on a variety of American products, such as Milwaukee-based Harley Davidson motorcycles.
Beforehand, Johnson told reporters he hoped to elicit more detail about Navarro’s long-term strategy for the tariffs, which have been simultaneously and contradictorily explained as a defense against supposed national security threats posed by foreign steel and aluminum, a direct response to Canada’s dairy tariffs, a negotiating ploy, a tool to boost domestic investment in those industries, and, nonsensically, an option for paying off the national debt.
Asked whether the meeting provided a clearer picture of the White House’s thinking, Johnson indicated that Navarro pointed simply to the Commerce Department’s official goal to increase domestic steel and aluminum capacity, not shedding much additional light on the subject.
“I’m not sure how they really achieve that or how all this is going to work out that way,” said Johnson. “He’s approaching this as an economist. He was looking at the macro effect, and I’m looking at it as a business person—coming from manufacturing, having participated in global markets, global supply chains—and I’m looking at the micro effect. That’s why it was a good exchange of ideas.”
Johnson is a co-sponsor of a bill by retiring Tennessee Republican Bob Corker, which would give Congress a say in national security tariffs introduced under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, such as Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. The senator avoided answering whether Corker’s bill had come up during his conversation with Navarro, but he theorized that “they’re probably not real nuts about those efforts.”
When pressed again on whether Navarro had told him as such during the meeting, Johnson chuckled and reiterated, “My guess is they’re not really nuts about those efforts.”
