Trump Hits Out at Murdoch’s Mouthpiece for Calling Tariffs ‘Dumbest Trade War’

Donald Trump.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

President Donald Trump spent the second Sunday of his administration attacking The Wall Street Journal after its editorial board criticized his steep tariffs on Mexico and Canada while admitting Americans may suffer because of them.

Trump blasted the Journal‘s editorial board as the head of the “Tariff Lobby” in a Truth Social post and promised America would no longer be the world’s “Stupid Country.” The editorial board eviscerated the 25-percent tariffs in a column on Saturday titled, “The Dumbest Trade War in History.”

But in his post, he did concede that Americans may bear the brunt of the cost of the tariffs.

“THIS WILL BE THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICA!” he wrote. “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. WE ARE A COUNTRY THAT IS NOW BEING RUN WITH COMMON SENSE — AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SPECTACULAR!!!"

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The Journal‘s editorial board disagreed. “Mr. Trump’s justification for this economic assault on the neighbors makes no sense,” it wrote.

“Mr. Trump sometimes sounds as if the U.S. shouldn’t import anything at all, that America can be a perfectly closed economy making everything at home,” it wrote. “This is called autarky, and it isn’t the world we live in, or one that we should want to live in, as Mr. Trump may soon find out.”

The editorial board, often viewed as a mouthpiece of owner Rupert Murdoch, has condemned many of Trump’s policies since he took office last month. It said Trump’s pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters sent “a rotten message from a president about political violence done on his behalf” and called his decision to strip his political enemies of their security details part of “some vindictive whim.”

While it has defended some of Trump’s decisions, its critical tone has put the traditionally conservative newspaper’s editorial board on the same plane as the more liberal voices of The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Paul Gigot, the editor of the Journal‘s editorial pages, told the Associated Press last week: “We are covering Trump like we do every president, and that means supporting his decisions when they warrant it, and criticizing them when that is deserved. It’s no more complicated than that.”