Begging business leaders flood Trump with pleas for help after Apple wins tariff exemption

President Donald Trump granted Apple and many other tech businesses an exemption from his "Liberation Day" tariff regime so their supply chains in China would not be disrupted — and now a bunch more companies are coming to beg for similar arrangements, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.

"Almost immediately, top aides to Mr. Trump insisted they had not strayed from their promise to apply import taxes across the economy with minimal, if any, exceptions," reported Tony Romm. Nevertheless, Trump's policy "still caught the attention of many businesses nationwide, igniting a fresh scramble for similar help in the throes of a global trade war."

Per the report, Trump has been inundated with pleas from lobbyists "for the agriculture, construction, manufacturing, retail and technology industries" to make further carveouts from his tariffs, "with many arguing that there are some products they must import simply because they are too expensive or impractical to produce in the United States."

Home Depot, Target, and Walmart are among the retail giants telling Trump they cannot maintain their current prices if they don't get some kind of relief from tariffs.

Trump's policy imposed 10 to 49 percent "reciprocal" import duties on virtually every other country, with rates set according not to actual trade barriers or foreign tariffs, but to the size of the U.S. trade deficits with each country — an idea that seems to have originated with Trump's longtime trade adviser Peter Navarro.

After markets plunged in response to the policy, and amid rising discontent even from a number of Republican lawmakers, Trump announced a three-month grace period in which all countries except China would be subject to the minimum rate of 10 percent.