House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) office said Monday that it was “extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war.”
“We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan,” Ryan spokesperson AshLee Strong said in a statement. “The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize those gains.”
That directly contradicted President Donald Trump, who last week announced his plan to apply 25 and 10 percent tariffs to steel and aluminum imports, respectively.
Trump claimed following the announcement that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
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. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018
A GOP source told TPM that congressional leaders won’t rule out potential action down the line.
This post has been updated.
