After President Trump’s first tumultuous thirteen months in office, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) looks set to finally have a major confrontation with the White House.
Ryan issued a statement on Monday critical of Trump’s decision to propose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, in objections that yielded public indifference from the President.
“No, we’re not backing down,” Trump said, when asked by a reporter to respond to Ryan’s criticism of the plan.
Staffers for Ryan had said they “are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war” and urged Trump to reconsider, according to spokesperson AshLee Strong.
In the release circulated to the media, staffers for Ryan attached an article detailing how stock markets were rattled by Trump’s tariff announcement last week, according to Yahoo News.
Both the previous two Presidents unilaterally imposed tariffs—Obama, on Chinese tires; George W. Bush, on steel. In both cases, the move was met with retaliation.
What’s unique about President Trump’s call for levies—25 percent on steel, 10 percent on aluminum—at one point he relished the opportunity for economic confrontation.
“When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump tweeted on Friday.
The President appeared to walk back some of that bravado, when pressed Monday about Speaker Ryan’s reaction.
“I don’t think you’ll have a trade war,” he told reporters.
Congressional Republicans are currently considering legislation that would override the President’s tariff proposals, according to Politico.
If it does materialize, the showdown will be something of a milestone for the Speaker. Since he was inaugurated, Ryan has not done much, in response to the President’s more controversial authoritarian policies.
In January 2017, the Speaker supported Trump’s Islamophobic travel ban. In May 2017, Ryan backed the President’s firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. He also shown little concern about Trump’s myriad conflicts of interest, in spite of the Constitution’s Emoluments clause.
Ryan additionally offered full backing to Trump last September, when the President said he would unilaterally cancel DACA—the Obama-era program granting temporary status to some 800,000 undocumented residents brought to the United States as children.
“Congress writes laws, not the president, and ending this program fulfills a promise that President Trump made to restore the proper role of the executive and legislative branches,” Ryan had said.
