President Trump's bad mood is allegedly responsible for what is snowballing into a full-blown trade war, officials told NBC News on Friday. One insider said Trump had become "unglued" when he made the unplanned announcement about tariffs at a meeting Wednesday. The president's comments have since provoked retaliatory threats from the European Union and Canada, and earned an expression of "grave concern" from China.
Trump, the two officials said, was angry and gunning for a fight, and he chose a trade war, spurred on by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, the White House director for trade. ... There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress, and no agreed upon communications plan ... No one at the State Department, the Treasury Department, or the Defense Department had been told that a new policy was about to be announced or given an opportunity to weigh in in advance. [NBC News]
NBC News notes that despite his tariff announcement, Trump was still believed to be angry Friday.
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