Amna Nawaz
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Congress grills Trump trade rep about tariff fallout
Posted
April 8, 2025
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April 8, 2025
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2:40Now PlayingA Republican senator asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday “whose throat do I get to choke” if the Trump administration’s tariff plans are unsuccessful.
The comment from Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina came during a Finance Committee hearing where Greer answered concerns about the dramatic trade policy set to take effect Wednesday at midnight.
Tillis described his phrase as a concept from management consulting that means someone has to be accountable.
“You can certainly always talk to me,” Greer said in response. “I am at the tip of the spear certainly.”
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., grilled Greer about possible course corrections the Trump administration could take if the stock market continued to plunge further as a result of trade and tariff moves.
“You're not going to say here today that you would reverse course,” she asked, “even if you crashed the stock market and harmed retirement savings as drastically as happened during the Great Recession in 2007?”
“Senator,” Greer said, “your hypotheticals are not consistent with the history we have seen with the use of tariffs.”
Hassan said her hypotheticals were based on Americans’ concerns over the state of their retirement savings.
“Nothing was thought out about this,” she said. “This has been a haphazard, incompetent effort – and it's showing.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., expressed disbelief that Greer and the Trump administration would be able to negotiate trade deals with 50 countries in a timely manner that would eliminate or mitigate any negative effects of tariffs.
Trump announced the tariffs plan last week in an event he called "Liberation Day," saying they were aimed at resolving a longtime trade deficit with partners around the world. Some Republicans have defended the tariffs, levied across dozens of countries, as a way to create leverage. Democrats, economists and other countries have blasted the plan, emphasizing deep and negative effects for U.S. consumers, as well as wider geopolitical consequences. Several economists have said the formula the White House used to develop the tariffs, which were much higher than expected, is flawed and misunderstands some key trade metrics.
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