‘Huge disagreement’ on tariff war in Trump administration, but he went ahead: Chief of staff Wiles

New York: “A huge disagreement” in his administration overshadowed US President Donald Trump’s tariffs war, according to his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and neither she nor Vice President JD Vance could slow him down.

The tariffs war was not well planned, and Trump’s claims that it would fill the nation’s coffers and not be a tax on consumers were “so much thinking out loud”, she said in candid interviews with Vanity Fair published on Tuesday.

It was “more painful than expected”, she admitted.

“There was a huge disagreement over whether (tariffs were) a good idea” among Trump’s advisers, but he went ahead, Wiles said.

As Trump prepared to announce his tariffs, ranging from 10 per cent to 100 per cent on April 2, which he called “Liberation Day”, Wiles said she teamed up with Vice President JD Vance to try to apply the brakes.

“We told Donald Trump, ‘Hey, let’s not talk about tariffs today. Let’s wait until we have the team in complete unity and then we’ll do it’ ”, she told the magazine.

But Trump disregarded their advice and went ahead with what he called the reciprocal tariffs, only to hit the pause button for 90 days when stocks tanked, and the bond market fell into a funk.

While some believed it was a panacea, others thought it would be a disaster, the magazine said.

But Trump returned with the tariffs,and hit India with 25 per cent tariffs and tacked on another punitive tariff of 25 per cent for buying Russian oil.

Another division in the administration is between the mercantilists who focused on what the tariffs would bring to the treasury, and the geostrategists who were concerned about the political and diplomatic fallouts.

In the case of India, for example, while Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick vilified the country and egged on the tariff standoff, the departments of War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have continued the close cooperation in defence and diplomatic fields with an eye on the geostrategic situation where China looms large.

The magazine wrote that Wiles believed a middle ground on tariffs would ultimately succeed.

For a chief of staff and cabinet member, the stream of candid comments about people and policies in a series of 11 interviews spread over several months was unusual.

She has not questioned the accuracy of the quotations in the articles, but said in an X post that they were not presented with the full contexts and aimed to give “an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative” about Trump and his administration.

Trump has dropped hints about a run for a third term, which is prohibited by the Constitution.

Ruiling it out, she said that “100 per cent” he will not run again, and is only “having fun” by talking about it and “driving people crazy”.

Wiles had harsh words for Elon Musk, the eccentric billionaire brought in by Trump to effect economies in government.

She called him “an odd, odd duck” who is an avid user of the mind-altering drug ketamine.

She said she was “initially aghast” at the way he summarily shut down USAID, the international aid arm of the US government that did “very good work”.

“No rational person could think the USAID (shutting down) process was a good one”, she said.

Wiles said that she had tried to stop Trump from pardoning those who were convicted of violence during the January 6, 2021, riot by his supporters who stormed the Capitol claiming the 2020 elections were “stolen”.

But he went ahead and pardoned them anyway.

She said that she tried to moderate Trump actions against his political enemies.

“We have a loose agreement that the score-settling will end before the first 90 days are over”, she said.

But the retributions have continued beyond that deadline in some cases.

She admitted that there “may be an element” of retribution sometimes, and added, “Who would blame him? Not me”.

IANS