SUMMARY: How are President Trump's tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum affecting manufacturers and workers? At two different Missouri factories, there are two very different stories. Mid Continent Steel and Wire, which makes nails, has already eliminated 100 jobs. But about 60 miles away at Magnitude 7 Metals, the reopened aluminum smelter is back up and running with hundreds of jobs. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: The Trump administration moved on Tuesday to mitigate for U.S. farmers the economic damage of the President's escalating trade war with allies and China, announcing $12 billion in emergency relief. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb) says that whenever you’re having a trade war, something is going wrong. “When there’s more trade in the world, Americans win.” Sasse joins Judy Woodruff for more.
SUMMARY: President Trump set into motion on Friday a 25 percent fee on more than 800 Chinese imported goods and China hit back with tariffs of its own on products like soybeans, pork and corn, which target areas that voted heavily for Trump. Amna Nawaz talks with David Honig of Indiana University McKinney Law School, and Yasheng Huang of MIT's Sloan School of Management.
SUMMARY: The trade war between the world’s two largest economies officially began Friday as tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods went into effect. Calling it the “biggest trade war in economic history,” Chinese officials had said China would raise similar tariffs on U.S. imports including pork, soybeans and automobiles. Ana Swanson of The New York Times joins Hari Sreenivasan for more.
SUMMARY: For months, the U.S. and China have traded tit-for-tat trade threats, but the battle between the world's two largest economies escalated to new levels Tuesday. Most recently, President Trump warned that he may impose tariffs on 90 percent of everything China exports to the U.S. Nick Schifrin examines the potential consequences with Edward Alden from the Council on Foreign Relations.
SUMMARY: The conservative, libertarian political advocacy group [Americans for Prosperity] funded by David and Charles Koch is undertaking a multi-million dollar campaign opposing President Trump's trade policies. John Yang talks with Tim Phillips, President of Americans for Prosperity, who says the President deserves a lot of credit for the current economy, but that the recent trade tariffs risk undermining those gains.
SUMMARY: Diplomatic pleasantries on Thursday didn’t mask the widening rift between the U.S. and its closest allies over new tariffs that threaten to spark a trade war. Yamiche Alcindor joins Judy Woodruff to offer a preview of the G7 Summit in Canada.
SUMMARY: The Group of Seven convened their Canadian summit in an atmosphere of argument over President Trump's trade demands. Before arriving, Trump had argued that Russia should return to the G7. At the summit, a suddenly canceled meeting with the French President Emmanuel Macron reflected the wider tensions between the allies. Yamiche Alcindor joins Judy Woodruff from Quebec.
SUMMARY: Relations between the U.S. and Europe took another hit Thursday when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the Trump administration would impose tariffs on European steel and aluminum. European Union Ambassador to the U.S. David O'Sullivan joins John Yang to discuss how the tariffs will affect the global economy and the alliance, plus the fallout from the U.S. withdrawing from the Iran deal.
SUMMARY: Prospects for averting an all-out trade war grew dimmer as the second round of negotiations between the U.S. and China kicked off in Washington [D.C.]. The President said China had been “spoiled" by lenient U.S. trade policies for too long. Yamiche Alcindor reports, and Judy Woodruff talks with David Lampton of Johns Hopkins University about questions surrounding Chinese telecom ZTE and more.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and National Review executive editor Reihan Salam join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including President Trump’s escalating calls for tariffs on Chinese imports, the decision to deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border, ethics concerns for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. 50 years after his death.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): From calling for a National Guard presence at the U.S.-Mexican border, to floating the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, the President’s announcements this week raised more questions than answers.
And that brings us to the analysis of Shields and Salam. That is indicated — syndicated…
(LAUGHTER)
Judy Woodruff: … columnist Mark Shields and “National Review” executive editor Reihan.
Reihan, welcome to the program.
And, Mark, you are more than indicated. You’re syndicated.
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
Mark Shields: Part of the syndicate.
(LAUGHTER)
Judy Woodruff: So let’s start, Mark, with the lead tonight, and that is these mixed signals mining from the top of the administration over trade.
The President putting out the word, the White House, late last night that they were looking seriously at more taxes, more tariffs on China. And then the President’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, saying — today saying, well, no, no, we’re still in negotiations.
What are we to make of this? The President clearly wants to send some sort of signal to China.
Mark Shields: No question about it, Judy, and he has, I think it’s fair to say. Larry Kudlow is an interesting case.
I first ran into him, he was working on the anti-war campaign of Senator Gene McCarthy, a Democrat, then worked for Senator Edmund Muskie, a Democrat, and then became a supply-sider, free trader with Ronald Reagan, and is now whatever Donald Trump is economically, and one can’t be absolutely sure.
But I think his time is short, because he’s been cast as the interpreter of Donald Trump, and Donald Trump fancies himself the world’s greatest communicator, and he doesn’t need an interpreter.
But that having been said, I think it’s fair to say that China in the short run — in the long run, is in tougher shape on this than we are, because we’re a bigger share of their market. But in the short run, which is where we all live, especially in a November election and the Republican majorities hanging by a thread, I think the pressure will mount on Donald Trump politically from his own base.
These are red states particularly being felt on the soybeans and the retaliation by the Chinese. So I think that’s where it is politically. I mean, if you’re a Republican up for reelection this year — and I would just point that more Republicans have retired in the year 2018 than any year since 1930, which was the middle of the first Depression, which tells you something about how they see it.
You want to talk about tax cuts. That’s what you want to talk about. You don’t want to talk about trade and immigration and borders, quite frankly. And I think that’s where the President’s returned.
Judy Woodruff: Reihan, how do you see the calculus?
Reihan Salam, National Review: I disagree politically.
Mark raises a very good point when he says the Chinese have been shrewd. They are targeting Republican constituencies, rock-ribbed, middle-of-the-country, farm Republican constituencies, et cetera.
But there is also the fact that Donald Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican. He was a sort of third-party candidate running under the Republican banner. And protectionism is an idea that is awfully popular with many people.
Now, when you’re talking about the negative impacts here, the thing is that sometimes we have a tendency to overstate them, because a lot of the negative impact is borne by companies that have relied on those supply chains, right?
But the thing is that, overall, think back to the Soviet grain embargo. You had a lot of farmers who said, yes, this is going to hurt me, but ultimately I support the policy.
You might wind up having a lot of people rally around the flag and saying that, yes, China, they engage in a lot of trade abuses, and this is something where they need to get clamped down. And so that’s why I think that, as opposed to tax cuts, which are a classically orthodox Republican thing to do, here Donald Trump left to his own devices is trying to do something a bit different that might be appealing to people who otherwise don’t vote Republican.
Judy Woodruff: But you don’t see mixed signals coming from the administration, or do you?
Reihan Salam: Oh, I absolutely see mixed signals.
So, part of this could be the savviness of, hey, this is my opening bid, and then I try to get something halfway, but there are definitely mixed signals.
Mark Shields: I respectfully disagree, in the sense that, if you want to go back to the grain embargo, you ask Democrats who lost their seats at that time under Jimmy Carter.
I do think, quite bluntly, that Donald Trump is playing Presidential politics, and he’s keeping his promise. He’s talking about his constituents. That’s why he returns to tariffs. That’s why he returns to the border and the hordes of rapists descending upon us, quite contrary to fact and reality.
But I don’t think, Judy, that this is helping Republicans, who are in an increasingly discouraging situation and condition heading into November 2018.
SUMMARY: On a day when President Trump ordered the U.S. trade representative to consider an additional $100 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, and the administration announced sanctions against Russian government officials and tycoons, the President also seems to be pondering the fate of embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. Yamiche Alcindor joins Judy Woodruff for a recap.
SUMMARY: The Trump administration announced new sanctions to punish Russia for "malign activity" around the world, targeting 24 Russian government officials and tycoons. John Yang speaks to special correspondent Ryan Chilcote about what makes the latest round different from previous actions and whether they will put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
SUMMARY: China counterpunched with new tariffs against U.S. products in the latest round of an escalating trade fight between the world's two largest economies. The Chinese announced plans for 25 percent tariffs on a list of American goods, including soybeans, cars, and chemicals, mirroring a Trump administration action hours earlier. Lisa Desjardins reports.
SUMMARY: As a trade showdown between the U.S. and China escalates, there's fears of how a trade war could hurt both countries. Special correspondent Katrina Yu reports from Beijing on how recently announced tariffs will affect farmers, importers, retailers, and consumers on both sides of the Pacific.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including a tumultuous week at the White House, President Trump’s surprise announcement of a tariff on imported steel and aluminum, and political polarization in Congress over gun control.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): It’s been one more whirlwind week in Washington, another high-profile departure from the White House, fresh scrutiny over the president’s son-in-law, and an escalation in the war of words between Mr. Trump and his own attorney general, all this as the President made surprise declarations on trade and gun control.
That brings us to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Welcome, gentlemen.
So, so much going on this week, I barely know where to begin.
At the White House, Mark, the President’s closest aide announced she’s leaving. He has a son-in-law who is under a lot of scrutiny over alleged conflicts of interest. He has a chief of staff who is raising questions again about his — how he handled the firing of an aide over domestic abuse, and on and on.
The leaks seem to just be flowing a gusher every day. What matters in all of this?
Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: What matters is chaos in the White House is bad for the United States and bad for the world. There’s no rational order.
I mean, for example, what you have described, the morale at the White House, from every report, is just incredibly low. To work in any White House, Judy, is an act of both self-sacrifice and self-interest. You miss birthdays. You miss anniversaries. You miss your children’s recitals.
But there’s a sense of mission, a sense of history, a sense also that it’s special. You’re part of something special. You get status and recognition.
All that is missing here. This is a civil war in a leper colony. There is no sense of direction. The steel quotas being a perfect example. There was no preparation — tariffs, rather — there was no preparation politically, there was no preparation for making a case, there was no preparation for the press, there was no preparation within the White House.
There’s nothing organization. It’s all act on impulse and chaos and sort of the whim of the President himself.
Judy Woodruff: There’s almost a temptation, David, to look at this as some kind of sideshow. But there are real consequences, aren’t there?
David Brooks, New York Times: Yes.
I’m actually thinking — I’m trying to think of historical parallels, when we have had this much chaos in the American Presidency. Richard Nixon had some bad days at the end there, but he had a very high-quality staff around him. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke.
I’m going through the list. I can’t think of anything quite like this, where we have the combination of a semi-competent or a missing staff, and an emotionally and intellectually unstable President.
Reince Priebus, the former chief of staff, said in an interview not long ago that, when you look from the outside, it’s actually 50 times worse from the inside. And we’re getting a glimpse of that.
And one thing that leapt out at me — and I think this is the key thing, the most important thing — that it has real-world consequences. We’re not just fighting over whether he has a military parade or not.
The steel tariff thing has real consequences. And the word that leapt out at me that one of his staffers said, one of his allies said, he made the decision because he became unglued.
And so we have a President makes a decision because he becomes unglued, a decision totally in avoidance of the entire process. And then to combine the chaos of it, he issues a tweet this morning which to me was a topper even by Trump standards that a trade war is good and easily won, a concept that no economist of any stripe and no historian of any stripe could possibly think is anything other than crazy.
And so it’s extremely disorienting right now.
Judy Woodruff: So, how do we process this, Mark?
It’s the headlines. Again, you could go in almost any direction every day over a new controversy or set of controversies at the White House.
Mark Shields: I honestly don’t know, Judy.
I mean, it’s just — it’s overload. It really is. The one consolation, the one defense that the President’s apologists and supporters say, he doesn’t mean what he says. That’s supposed to be the consolation. And don’t be so concerned.
One of the more plausible explanations for the impulsive imposition, keeping of a promise he’s made for 30 years on steel tariffs, was that the 18th District of Pennsylvania is up in two weeks, the special election for a Republican seat that the Democrats have not even contested in 2014 and 2016, that Donald Trump carried Southwestern Pennsylvania, blue-collar, by 20 points, and the Democrat, Conor Lamb, former Marine, former prosecutor, U.S. prosecutor, is even with the Republican nominee.
And a defeat here would send such panic. This is Trump territory. And this — was seen as standing up for American jobs. That’s the most plausible explanation politically. It’s not a defense, but it’s an explanation.
SUMMARY: President Trump announced stiff new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum on Thursday at a meeting with industry leaders. The President said the U.S. needed to crack down on countries flooding American markets with cheap metals. Judy Woodruff sits down with Greg Ip of The Wall Street Journal to discuss what this means for Americans and the fears it could spark a trade war.
