A number of Republican lawmakers met with White House economic and trade advisers Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro on Thursday morning, primarily to ask one question: What is their long-term trade plan?
That question went unanswered.
“I don’t know if I’m satisfied,” said Utah Republican Mia Love. “I guess I just don’t understand the strategy . . . We don’t want to create enemies out of our allies.”
During the meeting, Love said, House Republicans reiterated the various ways in which their constituents have been harmed by President Trump’s unilateral national security tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs that were placed on American goods in response—as well as his escalating trade war with China. Members also aired their grievances with the White House’s decision to prop up the U.S. agriculture industry earlier this week by making use of a Depression-era law to borrow $12 billion from the Treasury for relief.
“We shouldn’t be in the practice of creating barriers and then throwing money at trying to remove those barriers,” Love told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “That’s not what we do. Our job is to get out of the way so that people can prosper. We want to remove barriers so that people can go and thrive and feed their families and create jobs.” After sharing those thoughts with Navarro and Kudlow, the officials responded by urging members to “stick with us.”
For Love, that was unsatisfactory. “I need to know what the strategy is. I need to know what to tell people, and if I don’t have something to tell them, then it’s just unacceptable,” she said.
Ohio Republican Warren Davidson, who has introduced a bill to give Congress a say in unilateral trade actions from the White House, said the meeting was positive for communication between the administration and GOP lawmakers. “They’re at least open to improving the dialogue that we’ve had on trade between Congress and the White House,” he told reporters.
Other members said they were encouraged by Trump’s quasi-deal (and apparent trade war truce) with the European Union which was announced on Wednesday. Throughout the Thursday morning conversation with members, Navarro—a hardline protectionist voice in the administration—argued that the E.U. deal proves that Trump’s aggressive negotiating style can be successful. (Spoiler: It doesn’t.)
The vague U.S.-E.U. joint statement is narrowly drafted and is already being called into question. It only explicitly seeks an end to tariffs on non-auto industrial goods, leaving agricultural products, automobiles, and others sectors out of the equation. It does establish a working group that will attempt to set the stage for more in-depth negotiations, however. Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum remain in place.
Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling told reporters he was heartened to hear that the White House’s goal is supposedly to eliminate tariffs and trade barriers. Of course, he added, “the devil’s in the details.”
“I like encouraging talk. I like encouraging actions even more,” Hensarling said.
Still others were enthusiastic about the agreement with the E.U. California Republican Darrell Issa told reporters it was an important step forward in eliminating trade barriers. When TWS pointed out that Trump could have achieved far greater trade liberalization if he had pursued the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, Issa pushed back.
“That’s the lie of Obama,” he said, claiming incorrectly that TTIP negotiations had not addressed agriculture at all. “If he’d done TTIP, there was no access to our agriculture,” said Issa. He noted that the E.U. had agreed on Wednesday to buy more soybeans from the United States. How that will be carried out or quantified is unclear; the European Union does not have any tariffs on U.S. soybeans, and it has already been buying more American soybeans due to lower prices as a result of Trump’s trade war with China.
“I don’t know who you’re with. I don’t care. I’m leaving Congress,” Issa told TWS. “The reality, though, is that yesterday was the beginning of a good deal,” he said.
