Leaks Suggest White House Is Already Split Over Trump’s Tariffs

Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump hosts a round-table discussion on border security and safe communities with State, local, and community leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House on January 11, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong / Alex Wong/Getty Images

Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s far-right White House deputy chief of staff for policy, was among a chorus of administration officials who tried to get their boss to back down on his most extreme tariff threats, according to a report.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that Miller and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were among officials who urged Trump to consider more limited measures before he suddenly announced 25 percent tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico and 10 percent tariffs on goods from China Saturday.

Canada and Mexico have since negotiated a one-month delay to the tariffs after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum held last-minute calls with Trump on Monday. The tariffs on China kicked in on Tuesday, and Beijing announced retaliatory measures.

Miller, an anti-immigrant extremist who has promoted white nationalist literature, told Trump he worried that antagonizing Mexico would threaten the country’s cooperation with the U.S. to intercept migrants trying to reach the southern border, the Journal wrote.

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Miller’s interest in maintaining Mexico’s cooperation aligns with his long-professed desire to accelerate deportations and crackdowns on migrants. During Trump’s first term, he oversaw Trump’s most draconian, hardline immigration policies, including the separation of migrant children from their families and the ban on the entry of nationals from several Muslim-majority countries.

Miller told the Journal that he believes Trump’s tariffs are “an absolute necessity to protect the lives of our people, and they have already delivered unprecedented security gains.”

The Journal reported that several aides bounced around proposals to counter their boss' pledge to impose universal tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners in advance of Trump’s announcement.

Ideas included limiting tariffs to specific industries, adding a grace period before levies kick in, or carving out exemptions for key sectors, such as auto manufacturing.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, participated in a call with auto executives last week and informed them the administration was considering exempting their industry, the Journal reported.

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That created only a temporary sense of relief, as Trump appeared in the Oval Office less than an hour later and reiterated his threat to impose universal tariffs.

Before Trump returned to the White House, Wiles pledged to end the culture of leaks to the media about rival staffers giving different advice to the president. The Wall Street Journal report suggests that internal divisions will once again be publicly displayed.

“I don’t welcome people who want to work solo or be a star,” Wiles told Axios. “My team and I will not tolerate backbiting, second-guessing inappropriately, or drama. These are counterproductive to the mission.”

On Monday, two days after Trump announced the tariffs, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, one of the administration’s top economic officials, insisted the administration was not engaging in a trade war.

“It’s about drugs, and it’s about the drug war,” he told CNBC. “It’s not about a trade war.”

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Trump agreed to delay tariffs on Mexico after Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 troops to the border to crack down on drug trafficking and illegal migration. Canada received a similar reprieve after Trudeau reiterated his country had already begun implementing a $900 million (CA$1.3 billion) border security plan and agreed to create a fentanyl czar to oversee the policing of trafficking of the fatal drug.

David McNaughton, a former Canadian ambassador to the U.S. who is advising his country’s government on negotiations, told the Journal that Trump officials have offered mixed messages.

“We’ve talked to many, many people who are in the administration, or who are about to be confirmed, but everybody’s got a different story,” he said. “It’s frustrating.”

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada who is running to replace Trudeau as the leader of the governing Liberal Party, told CNN Monday that Trump’s actions had prompted feelings of “betrayal.”

He echoed McNaughton’s remarks, noting the U.S. administration has been inconsistent throughout negotiations.

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“The conversation keeps shifting,” said Carney, noting Canada is more than willing to cooperate on combating fentanyl trafficking, one of Trump’s stated motives for the tariffs. “It shifts to energy. This morning, Canadian banking was brought up for the first time in the public domain. It’s very hard to have these discussions when things are moving so rapidly and just not being consistent.”

He added: “This is the most successful commercial relationship in the world. We’re your largest client. We import more than China, the UK, France and Japan combined. We have liked that arrangement, we’d like to continue it if we can.”