Is Trump’s New Tack On Trade A Bannon Victory Over Kushner?
Image by Getty
As President Trump returned on Thursday to old accusations that foreign powers are cheating America on trade, it looked as if Steve Bannon – on the ropes for a number of weeks – might have a new lease on life within the administration.
“He’s manically focused on these trade issues,” Bannon told The New York Times. Skepticism of free trade was a hallmark of Trump’s White House bid, and was seen as part of the nationalist departure from Republican orthodoxy that Bannon helped engineer.
The president’s executive order called for an investigation into whether China or South Korea were engaged in unfair trade practices in their exporting of steel.
Before the executive order announcement, the West Wing’s moderates – including Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – seemed to be outmaneuvering the nationalists on economic policy and overall influence.
The president referred to Bannon as a “guy who works for me,” bragged that he was his own strategist and did nothing to tamp down rumors that Bannon soon might find himself booted out of the West Wing.
But as his polls sink and his administration seems unmoored, Trump might be returning to the red-meat message on the economy and trade partners that proved so popular in the heartland.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
