'Not going well': NYT reporter says Trump team quietly scrambling for way out of trade war

29 April

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 10, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war with China is apparently the source of panic from officials in his administration, and one journalist has described that tension in "private conversations" with some of her sources.

During a Tuesday night interview with CNN host Anderson Cooper, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman said that the Trump administration is largely positive as it takes stock of its accomplishments during the first 100 days of his second term. This includes the "near-total sealing of the Southern border," which she said is now "basically closed." However, she said that the administration's mood on the economy is much darker and more pessimistic.

"What he is doing on trade is clearly not going very well. No one can, on the same day, articulate what exactly the goal of this trade policy is, what they are looking for," Haberman said. "You have the president saying that he has spoken to president Xi [Jinping], which seems to be a call that nobody else can attest to."

"You are seeing consumer confidence dropping and confidence in the U.S. brand dropping," she continued. "There's no question he has been massively impactful. But whether that is good or bad depends on where."

"They are very clearly looking for off-ramps for a lot of these negotiations with various countries, particularly with China," Haberman added. "Trump has overestimated the leverage that he had in a couple of places, but especially with China. And this is not going well for the U.S. side right now."

Haberman noted that after Trump's April 2 "Liberation Day" tariffs on most of the United States' trade partners around the world prompted widespread confusion and chaos in financial markets, both he and his team have been "less reactive to the stock market" in comparison to Trump's first term in the White House. And she pointed out that the tariffs Trump imposed in his first term were far more targeted than the more recent trade duties he imposed. And she remarked that the administration is far more attuned to public opinion surveys — which the latest have shown Trump significantly underwater on most issues — than he lets on.

"I know he says he doesn't care about the polls. He does care about the polls," Haberman said. "They do take comfort in the fact that they continue to maintain that public polling by media outlets and by universities and so forth oversample Democrats. You heard him say that that is something his advisers say, too. But ... the trajectory is not good right now. "

Watch Haberman's segment below, or by clicking this link.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

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