Trump Advisers Took Advantage of Navarro’s Absence to Push for Tariff Pause

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"On April 9, financial markets were going haywire. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wanted President Trump to put a pause on his aggressive global tariff plan. But there was a big obstacle: Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff-loving trade adviser, who was constantly hovering around the Oval Office."

https://archive.ph/NCKRc

The article goes on to detail how they managed to get to Trump when Navarro was elsewhere in the building and persuade him to put the "reciprocal" tariffs on hold for 90 days.

So much for the belief that this was all planned. Further evidence of that is the fact that Bessent subsequently denied the 90 days moraturium was due to the situation with bonds only to have Trump say shortly afterwards that the bond market was the reason. This isn't even at the level of 2 dimensional tic-tac-toe.

And by the way, this article comes from a Marxist-Leninist news source: Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

[Tug]

Well sure what did anyone expect with a president who has the attention span of a toddler unable to process facts unable to admit mistakes (that’s a symptom of his mental illness) we are in a very dangerous situation in my view.

[bannork]

 

 MSNBC's Steve Benen cited a recent Wall Street Journal report about Trump cabinet secretaries going to extraordinary lengths to subvert trade advisor Peter Navarro in order to convince Trump to pause his tariffs and allow the stock markets to rebound.

Benen also cited the division between DOGE chief Elon Musk and Nav, Musk called the trade adviser a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks" and the apparent anti-Navarro alliance between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Benen concluded, "Trump appears content to play the role of President Bystander, watching these divisions get even worse."

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