Republicans are privately fuming about president Donald Trump's tariffs, according to a GOP strategist, but publicly they're not willing to break ranks.
Global markets slumped after the president announced a baseline 10-percent global import tax and double-digit “reciprocal tariffs," and Republican strategist Doug Heye told "CNN News Central" that GOP lawmakers have been privately dreading Trump's campaign promise.
"They're very nervous and, look, the word 'tariff' is typically the fingernails on the chalkboard for Republicans," Heye said. "That it hasn't been publicly at this point tells you how much the party has changed under Donald Trump. But privately, there are a lot of conversations happening, House side and Senate side, with Republicans on nervousness on what this is and what its impacts are."
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Industry groups are bracing for the impact of the tariffs, which threaten to massively disrupt the manufacturing industry, in particular, but business leaders have also been reluctant to speak out against the president and his policies.
"What I'm hearing and seeing downtown Washington, where a lot of trade associations, a lot led by Republicans or former Republican staffers, are signaling their nervousness, as well," Heye said. "They may not want to come out and condemn it, but they're talking about impacts and what they may be, and what I saw from Jay Timmons, the longtime head of the National Association of Manufacturers, pretty important part of this conversation that we've had over the past few weeks is he's asking a lot of questions. He wants more information to know exactly what's going to happen."
"That tells you that that sector of the economy is very nervous about what's happening right now," Heye added.
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