Tariff Pause Was Planned, Not a 'Panic Move,' White House Economist Says
The Trump administration's decision to pause most reciprocal tariffs on April 9 was a "well-planned move" and not a reaction to the bond market, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said in an interview with CNBC April 10.
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It is possible that the announcement to pause tariffs was "going to happen anyway" because countries had expressed willingness to negotiate and "there were so many deals teed up," he said, adding, "And I think, you know, the fact that the bond market was telling us, 'hey, it's probably time to move,' certainly would have contributed at least a little bit to that thinking."
He quickly corrected that statement, saying "but it wasn't the bond market that made a panic move, because there was a very systematic, well-planned move that was just about to happen that just turned out to be at the same time right now."
The entire administration "as a team," from "Peter Navarro, to whoever else you think is on the other side," agreed to a general pause on reciprocal tariffs, Hassett said. The pause is part of what he described as phase one, which involves setting up a "process so that these negotiations can proceed in a very orderly, well-thought-out fashion, with timelines and so on, and priorities." This ought to be "very reassuring for markets," he added.
Phase two "will be when you start to see the actual deals and see the characteristics of them," he said, which will come "much faster than you might think," because "we've got a few deals that we've been working on ahead of this that are really, really well advanced."
He described the president's plan as an "all-of-the-above approach" that will ultimately strengthen relationships between the U.S. and other countries. "I'm really highly excited about it," he concluded. "It's going to be a heck of a time."