The United States is rolling back tariffs on “products that cannot be grown, mined, or naturally produced in the United States,” reports The Wall Street Journal, as President Trump himself told Fox Business Network in an interview that his retaliatory 100% tariffs on China, raising the total to 157%, were “not sustainable.”
Trump already backs down on his extra 100% China tariffs.
“It’s not sustainable,” he admits.
So, why bluff and TACO every time?
Great negotiator.
Fox News interview: pic.twitter.com/hstqUoprW1
— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) October 18, 2025
The rollback of the controversial Trump tariffs, which the President has used to trigger a global trade war against America’s allies and enemies alike, is being criticized by both Democrats and Republicans. (The WSJ describes the administration as “tiptoeing away” from the President’s “signature” tariffs.)
Former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama administration and two-term Congressman Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) responded: “They needed eight months to figure out that tariffs won’t make bananas grow in Iowa.”
That it took the White House 9 months to figure this out is economic malpractice. https://t.co/sT4iJW5cbv
— Jessica Riedl
(@JessicaBRiedl) October 20, 2025
Jessica Riedl, a former chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) who served 10 years as Heritage Foundation’s lead research fellow on federal budget and spending policy, and as director of budget and spending policy for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, also commented on the WSJ report.
Riedl wrote, without pulling punches: “That it took the White House 9 months to figure this out is economic malpractice.”
Riedl also criticized the GOP response to the No Kings protests over the weekend, saying the denunciations by prominent Republicans “just come off as desperate, worried, and cultish.”
All these GOP anti-rally clips just come off as desperate, worried, and cultish.
A more confident party would try to downplay the rallies by defending their right to protest and claiming that they prove were still a free country, and then pivoting to your own side’s record. https://t.co/w2LTNo9i4T
— Jessica Riedl
Note: According to her Manhattan Institute bio, “Jessica Riedl (formerly Brian Riedl) is a senior fellow focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy.” A seasoned economist and researcher, Riedl was named “one of the 26 most influential policy professionals” within economic policy by Washingtonian Magazine in 2022, 2023, and 2024.
In 2024, Malinowski was elected as Chair of the Hunterdon County Democratic party, a small organization in a solidly red county where Republicans hold every county office and Democrats have not won a freeholder/county commissioner race since 1979.