'Reckless': Here's what really sparked Trump's about-face on tariffs

The Washington Post reports President Donald Trump remained largely indifferent to his tariffs dismantling U.S. and global economies and inflaming production costs for small U.S. business-owners and only responded to the prospect of one particular facet of America feeling the pain.

Small and large businesses alike were seeing eye-popping bills on Chinese parts and imports thanks to new U.S. taxes Trump applied to cargo when it hit U.S. ports, but it wasn’t the outrage of business-owners that drove him to reduce his 145 percent tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent.

“The key argument was that this was beginning to hurt Trump’s supporters — Trump’s people,” an anonymous source told The Washington Post. “It gave [White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles] a key window.”

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According to Washington Post, Trump remained indifferent to the plight of business-owners opening boxes of Chinese parts and seeing new bills adding an additional $8,752 to a $5,649 order. Nor did he appear to react to business owners having to tap savings or seek new investors to stay afloat. What turned Trump’s boat were truck drivers and longshoremen.

Things changed when White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other aides told Trump that his own voters were now feeling the threat of tariffs, according to two anonymous sources.

“That gave them a path to initiating negotiations with the Chinese, which culminated this past weekend in Geneva with a partial deal to reduce tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies,” reports the Washington Post.

Another White House official insists multiple factors contributed to the trade talks in Switzerland.

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Longshoremen and truck drivers have significant interaction with the supply chain, particularly at ports, and they stood to suffer considerably as buyers rebuffed overpriced imports and imports dwindled. In April, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union called Trump’s trade policies “reckless” and “shortsighted,” warning that U.S. tariffs will lead to massive job losses and higher prices for working-class Americans.

Truck driver-focused periodicals reported high percentages of subscribers supporting Trump in the lead up to the November election.

Read the full Washington Post report here.