Washington
Cnn
–
President Donald Trump’s highest sales manager said he was not informed of the 90 -day break on most new prices after his announcement.
At the same time as the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, defended Trump’s rigid prices during a house audience, Trump said on his social media platform that the administration would delay additional tariff on dozens of 90 days – which entered into force for only hours on Wednesday – with the exception of China.
Trump’s tariff hike, although short -lived, was the clearest of all time according to data dating back 200 years, said Fitch Ratings to CNN, which would probably have led to higher inflation and lower economic growth if they were kept in place, according to most economists.
When the Democratic representative Steven Horsford of Nevada asked Greer when he learned of Trump’s last tariff decision, he said: “Well, I understood that the decision was made a few minutes ago.”
“It seems that your boss has just taken out the carpet from under you and has made a price break,” said Horsford.
Greer then said that he knew that the change in politics was a possibility on Wednesday morning. But when he was asked directly if he knew that the policy came into force, he replied that the administration discusses “all kinds of options”.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a post on x That he and the secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent were with Trump “when he wrote one of the most extraordinary messages of truth of his presidency”.
“We do not really know who directs things there,” said representative Jimmy Gomez from California, a democrat, referring to the position of Lutnick.
During the hearing, Greer reiterated that the American trade deficit is an “emergency” which justifies the historic overhaul of Trump’s American trade policy, but he said that the president was still open to negotiations with countries. He said that he had recently talked with his European Union counterparts, South Korea, Ecuador and Mexico.
Rig said to the Senate legislators On Tuesday, that Trump’s general rates were necessary to combat the US trade deficit Global, even if the stock market languish And long -standing allies have been taken in cross -fires. He said Trump’s commercial objective was to address the so-called obstacles from foreign countries, which include regulations that do not favor American companies.
Meanwhile, the United States and China are deeply in a trade war in Tit-For-Tat. The prices on China were increased to 125% on Wednesday, with immediate effect. Before Trump’s announcement, Beijing had retaliated with 84% prices on American imports.
“Almost all countries have announced that they are not going to fight back against the United States, we obviously have China that has made its own choice,” said Greer. “They have always gave us trouble, they have always limited our access there and they double on this path, it is a problem of Chinese agency.”
The European Union also retaliated against Trump’s prices on Wednesday, supporting its first countermeasures against the 25% of rights that Trump imposed on steel and aluminum imports. The European Commission in a statement said it had a “clear preference to find negotiated results with the United States, which would be balanced and mutually beneficial”.
Republican representative Jason Smith of Missouri, president of the chamber and means committee, said that there was “a serious commercial problem with agriculture and the European Union”.
Greer said in response: “It is fundamentally unfair, it is structurally unfair, it has been for decades and I am very clear with them that any type of agreement or negotiation or anything, he must have a component (agricultural).”