'Not a fan': Even Ted Cruz is dubious of Trump's plan
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a big supporter of President Donald Trump — but not so much his tariffs.
Cruz, who back in February expressed hope that the tariffs wouldn't go into effect at all, still tried to put a spin of supporting Trump's policy on Fox Business with former Trump adviser Larry Kudlow on Thursday, saying that the tariffs could just be the first salvo in a negotiation to get the entire global trade system working more fairly.
Even he acknowledged, however, that the risk of Trump's policy crashing the economy and burdening consumers was very real.
"Look, I think it is a mistake to assume that we will have high tariffs in perpetuity," said Cruz. "I don't think that would be good economic policy. I am not a fan of tariffs. And the announcement yesterday — look, time is going to tell in the next month or two or three what happens."
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"If the result of yesterday's announcement is a lot of our trading partners across the globe dramatically reduce the tariffs they charge on U.S. goods and services, and the consequence of that is the U.S. government dramatically cuts the tariffs that were announced yesterday, that would be a great outcome, that would be good for America," he continued. "If the result is our trading partners jack up their tariffs and we have high tariffs everywhere, I think that is a bad outcome for America. Tariffs are a tax on consumers, and I'm not a fan of jacking up taxes on American consumers. So my hope is these tariffs are short-lived and they serve as leverage to lower tariffs across the globe."
Republican lawmakers in general are trying to walk a line of standing by their constituents, many of whom are warning the tariffs could hit them harder and particularly hit areas that voted for them, while not openly defying or displeasing Trump. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), whose state is a significant food exporter and would suffer particularly from a trade war, introduced legislation this week to limit Trump's tariff powers.