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Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson admitted he doesn’t know President Donald Trump’s “endgame” after the president decided to pause sweeping global tariffs and concentrate his trade war on China.
One week after his “Liberation Day” announcement, the president said he would abruptly pause reciprocal tariffs on most nations for 90 days while increasing duties on Chinese imports to 125 per cent “effective immediately.”
Johnson, who last week called Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda a “bold, risky move,” appeared perplexed about the president’s strategy after his announcement on Wednesday afternoon.
“I still don’t know exactly what his total strategy is,” the Republican lawmaker told CNN correspondent Manu Raju on Capitol Hill. “We know what his goal was... he wants reciprocity.”
“I’m relieved like the markets are relieved,” he added. “At some point in time, the thing will stabilize; I don’t know what the endgame is here yet.”
Meanwhile, California Senator Adam Schiff also told Raju that he would be writing to the White House over fears of insider trading, questioning whether the president’s team had prior knowledge of Trump’s U-turn.
Schiff’s comments came a day after Trump ridiculed the Democrat’s “big fat face” and “watermelon head” at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual gala in Washington, D.C.
In a separate statement, Schiff said Trump “is creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.”
“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?,” he said.
Four hours after broadcasting on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!,” the president reversed course.
Trump’s dramatic U-turn sparked a bounceback of global markets, which had lost trillions in the wake of his brewing trade war.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed by 7.8 per cent when markets closed Wednesday, marking the index’s best day since 2020. The S&P 500 rallied 9.5 per cent, and the tech-focused Nasdaq jumped 12.1 per cent.
The president claimed Wednesday more than 75 countries called the White House to express their willingness to negotiate a deal. A day earlier, at the NRCC dinner, Trump accused them of “kissing my a**” in desperate bids to reduce the levies.
After hiking other duties on China, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”
Later in the day, Trump appeared outside the White House with a group of car racing champions, celebrating their “endurance” and gesturing at a bright red and yellow race car parked near the South Lawn.
“I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” Trump said when asked why he reversed course and paused tariffs for 90 days.
“They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” he said. “It’s working out maybe faster than I thought.”
