PAUL RYAN/TARIFFS/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump, facing an angry chorus of protests from leaders of his own party, including the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, insisted on Monday [3-5-18] that he would not back down from his plan to impose across-the-board tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But the White House was devising ways to potentially soften the impact of the measures on major trading partners…
On Monday, Mr. Ryan, the most powerful Republican in the House, broke with the president, declaring through a spokeswoman, ‘We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan.’ The tariffs, Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman said, would ‘jeopardize’ the economic gains from the recent Republican tax cuts.
Mr. Trump appeared little moved by the pushback… But a person close to the White House said that the president was itching to impose tariffs, and that Monday’s stock market rebound had reassured Mr. Trump that he was in the right… But Mr. Trump did open the door to a compromise, at least with Canada and Mexico, which are in negotiations with the United States to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement. If the two countries agree to a ‘new & fair’ Nafta, they could be exempt from the tariffs, Mr. Trump said in a tweet on Monday morning.”
-Ana Swanson, Mark Landler, and Maggie Haberman, “Trump Reaffirms Commitment to Tariffs but Opens Door to Compromise,” The New York Times online, Mar. 5, 2018