Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was making the media rounds on Sunday and explaining to everyone that there was nothing to fear with regards to President Trump’s decision to raise tariffs.
On NBC News:
Chuck Todd: All right. Let me start with this. It — we had some reporting that said the president was looking for a fight, you gave it to him.
But there weren’t many preparations with this announcement. There was no diplomatic strategy. We had people at State, Treasury, Department of Defense. They were blindsided by this.
What’s the urgency? Why-why was this suddenly needed to be done the way it was done and why the odd announcement the way it was done?
Wilbur Ross: Well, first of all, it wasn’t sudden. The president, ever since the campaign, has said he’s going to do something to fix steel and aluminum. Almost a year ago, he commissioned the Commerce Department to do the studies on steel and aluminum. They’ve been through any number of interagency reviews before they were released to the public.
So, with a whole year of preparation, I don’t know why anybody should’ve been so shocked…
Chuck Todd: OK. You just described a process to me before that that said that that you’ve done interagency stuff. You’ve been researching it behind the scenes. But no negotiations with China. No negotiations — no negotiations with these other countries. Why?
Wilbur Ross: Well, we’ve certainly had discussions with China. Their big advisor to Mr. Xi was in Washington that very same day. We had Mar-a-Lago session with China. We had another session in November back in Beijing. There’s been plenty of discussion.
On Fox News:
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.