Trump Officials Stand By Tariffs One Week After Midterms

What happened at the B20 summit

In Washington on Tuesday, Jim Goyer, Trump's director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, told the B20 summit the administration will keep using tariffs to bolster U.S. manufacturing, shore up supply chains, and protect national security. The gathering of global business leaders was hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Goyer's bottom line: "And we are just getting started," followed by, "Our ambition is to continue this pace for the remainder of the president's term in office."

That stance met a broader reality check. In a dialogue with Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark, Kevin Brady - previously a Republican member of Congress and a co-lead of the B20 summit - summarized it this way: "President Trump has disrupted that system in a way that we're not likely to return to." Clark tied the election message to household budgets, saying, "Last week, American voters sent a clear message about the cost of living and their economic security."

The split among business and policy figures

Gary Cohn, Trump's former chief economic advisor and now vice chairman of IBM, took the other side onstage Tuesday. "Tariffs are a consumption tax on the U.S. consumer," he said, arguing they lift prices and cause Americans to rethink purchases.

Cohn also warned that counting tariff revenue without the household hit misses the full ledger. "You're looking at one side of the equation. You're looking at the credit side of the balance sheet," he said. "There's the debit side of the balance sheet, which is every hardworking American who happened to pay the tariff through some product that they bought." He outlined a possible bipartisan deal that would lock in safeguards targeting China and curbing unfair trade practices, even as it removed tariffs on Canada to reduce what a later administration would have to unwind.

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What the numbers and polls show

The electoral fallout was clear. According to CNBC's Voter Poll, roughly two-thirds blamed inflation on Trump's policies, and nearly nine in ten said the cost of living played a decisive or central role in how they voted. A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday found 62% of Americans backed ending Trump's tariffs, and just 21% gave his management of the cost of living a positive mark.

The pressure built further with fresh readings on prices. Government figures Tuesday showed the consumer price index rose 0.4% in October, topping economists' forecasts. The latest year-over

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