Paul Ryan says that his chairman of the Ways and Means committee, Kevin Brady, is working with the Trump administration to try and get them to simply target the trade abusers, like China, but in a way that doesn’t garner retaliation that could turn into a trade war.
He explains:
NEW: Speaker Paul Ryan, who has been critical on Pres. Trump's tariffs announcement: "There is clearly abuse occurring...I think the smarter way to go is to make it more surgical and more targeted." https://t.co/5HhUTpRJEp pic.twitter.com/OT6OuTh7NL
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 6, 2018
"We think the proper approach is a more surgical approach, so we do not have unintended consequences," House Speaker Paul Ryan says of proposed aluminum and steel tariffs https://t.co/6Si7suHCCH pic.twitter.com/Xms0zVY6mJ
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 6, 2018
Ryan concedes that Trump is right about a dumping problem, that there are abusers and China is one of them. But as he explains, he believes they can deal with the problem in a surgical way that doesn’t involve collateral damage.
Based on what we’ve already posted this morning on Gary Cohn, I suspect that Cohn is working with Ryan and Kevin Brady to try and get the administration to accept other alternatives so that our Protectionist-in-Chief doesn’t go all in like he’s been threatening.
It’s a good strategy and I hope it works. Crossing fingers…