Roving Periscope: Now, Trump’s Man Friday Musk clashes with tariff chief!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: US President Donald Trump, who is fighting a ‘world trade war’ against almost all countries on this planet, may not have bargained for it. Even as millions of American protesters have raised a “Hands Off” banner of revolt against his policies, and the US’s closest allies in the West are grinding their axes against Washington, the 78-year-old businessman-turned-Republican has a new front to mollify his men in the administration.
The first off the block is Elon Musk, whose Tesla is also facing flak amid plummeting market share. Trump had reportedly engaged Musk to assist him for a couple of months to ‘streamline’ the administration heavily infested with Democrats.
Tensions are escalating by the day between key members of President Trump’s administration, many of whom are clueless as to what all is happening. Elon Musk, who heads the newly-created but unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has criticised Peter Navarro, a White House advisor for Trump for the ‘aggressive’ tariff strategy announced by the President, the media reported on Tuesday.
According to a Washington Post report, Musk unsuccessfully tried making direct appeals to Trump when the President threatened China with additional 50 percent tariffs, after Beijing levied 34 percent retaliatory tariffs. A decision, which Trump later said he is willing to negotiate.
Using his social media platform, Musk voiced his opinion on X (formerly Twitter), seeking the reversal of these tariffs and singling out Navarro. Even though Musk did not directly criticise tariffs imposed by Trump, he shared a video of the economist Milton Friedman, where he explains the benefits of international trade for everyone.
This marks the highest-profile disagreement between Trump and one of his key advisors, Musk, who donated some USD 290 million to the Republican candidate and others ahead of the US Presidential elections in 2024. Musk also heads the highly-unpopular cost-cutting efforts deployed by the unofficial outfit he heads, the DOGE, the chopping block Trump is using to flush out the Democrats’ deep-state ecosystem across America.
But this is not the first time that Musk has expressed his differing opinion from other members of the Trump administration. Earlier also, he presented a different viewpoint on issues like the H-1B visa for skilled immigrants and DOGE’s effort to reduce government spending. Born in South Africa, he was himself an ‘illegal’ immigrant into the USA for a short while, according to the media reports.
Taking on Navarro, a key member of the Trump administration, who has been key to developing the ‘tariff plans’, Musk, on Sunday, questioned his credentials in a post on X. He wrote, “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing.”
Responding to Musk’s statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted, “The President has put together a remarkable team of highly talented and experienced individuals who bring different ideas to the table, knowing that President Trump is the ultimate decision maker.”
“When he makes a decision, everyone rows in the same direction to execute. That’s why this Administration has done more in two months than the previous Administration did in four years.”
Musk, who supports a zero-tariff situation, reiterated his stance in an interview with Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, adding that he would like to see a ‘free trade zone,’ and that he would prefer more freedom for people to move between countries in Europe and the US.
Among the world’s richest persons, Musk, who also owns Tesla, the electric car company, has long seen these tariffs as harmful to the business of a company that counts both the US and China as its key manufacturing and consumer markets.
During Trump’s first term (2017-21), Musk opposed these tariffs when his electric car company filed a lawsuit, seeking to overturn the duties levied on Tesla’s imports from China to the US.
