A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The tariffs will cause U.S. businesses to pay extra to import products into the country.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
And for some of those major trading partners, that new tax is steep, from an added 20% on goods from the European Union to an extra 46% on goods from Vietnam, and they will likely mean higher prices for consumers. But Trump has opened the door to changes. Here's what he said yesterday.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And we're doing very well and making - I call them tailor deals, not off the rack. These are tailored, highly tailored deals. Right now, Japan is flying here to make a deal. South Korea is flying here to make a deal, and others are flying here.
MARTÍNEZ: Danielle Kurtzleben is NPR's White House correspondent. So, Danielle, what is the White House saying about how long these tariffs will last?
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Well, the White House's messaging on this has been confusing. There were several days there where you'd have one administration official saying these tariffs are nonnegotiable, that they're going to stick around a while. And then you'd have another official saying Trump was open to negotiation. But yesterday, the White House seemed to have settled on the idea that, yes, these tariffs are negotiable. They've said that about 70 countries have reached out for some sort of talks. And yesterday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that these tariffs have always been open to negotiation.
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KAROLINE LEAVITT: The entire administration has always said that President Trump is willing to pick up the phone and talk. And the president met with his trade team this morning, and he directed them to have tailor-made trade deals with each and every country that calls up this administration to strike a deal.
KURTZLEBEN: And that's a narrative that fits with an image Trump really likes to project, which is that he's a master dealmaker. But he did say yesterday it's a long list of countries and it could take some time to get through.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, so long list. Which countries have reached out?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, Trump has said he's spoken to leaders of multiple major trading partners, including Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. But one country that has not reached out, according to Trump, is China. Now, there's been some back-and-forth on retaliation with them, but as a result, the tariff on Chinese goods is now at least a hundred four percent. So that more than doubles the cost of a lot of consumer goods from them. And if China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products stays in place, that could very much hurt some U.S. businesses like farmers who send a lot of crops there.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Is Donald Trump getting any pushback from within his own party?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, not only that, there's been pushback from within his own team. Elon Musk has openly opposed these tariffs. He's the head of Tesla and SpaceX. And yesterday, on social media, he lashed out at top trade adviser Peter Navarro in several really insulting posts. At one point, he called Navarro, quote, "dumber than a sack of bricks." Now, on Capitol Hill, things are much more polite, but Republican anger is starting to show. U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer faced the Senate Finance Committee in a hearing yesterday, and several Republicans really pressed him on the tariffs. They asked, for example, when and how the tariffs might go away. Now, in addition, there have now been bipartisan bills introduced in both the House and the Senate seeking to restrict the president's tariff authority. Those bills - they're unlikely to pass, but they do have a little Republican support, and that represents some cracks in what's usually a very unified GOP.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thanks a lot, Danielle.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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