President briefed on Hurricane Dorian with storm forecast to grow ‘extremely dangerous’
President Donald Trump on Friday took a slap at what he called badly run companies, saying there isn’t a problem with tariffs as the U.S. and China were set to impose new levies on each other’s products beginning Sunday.
‘WE DON’T HAVE A TARIFF PROBLEM’
With individual companies and business groups complaining about the effects of his trade war, Trump said on Twitter, “Badly run and weak companies are smartly blaming these small Tariffs instead of themselves for bad management…and who can really blame them for doing that?”
Trump didn’t name any companies. On Wednesday, a coalition of 161 manufacturers, farmers, retailers, natural gas and oil companies as well as other business groups, sent a letter asking Trump to postpone tariff rate increases on Chinese goods slated to take effect this year. More businesses and farmers say they are suffering amid the U.S.-China trade war, as the Wall Street Journal writes, with Best Buy Co. BBY, +0.25% among the latest firms to warn of the impact of tariffs.
The U.S. government will begin collecting 15% tariffs on $112 billion in Chinese imports beginning Sunday. The Associated Press says when the tariffs kick in, 69% of the consumer goods Americans buy from China will face import taxes, up from 29% now. China’s retaliatory measures take effect the same day.
Saying “we don’t have a tariff problem,” Trump went back to his regular criticism of the Federal Reserve, pressing the central bank to more aggressively cut interest rates. “If the Fed would cut, we would have one of the biggest Stock Market increases in a long time,” the president claimed.
U.S. stocks DJIA, +0.16% SPX, +0.06% COMP, -0.13% ended mostly higher on the final trading day of August, which saw volatile action driven by trade and global growth concerns.
HURRICANE READINESS
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were briefed by Federal Emergency Management Agency and other officials on the potential impact of Hurricane Dorian, which is gathering strength and could slam Florida as soon as Monday as a Category 4 storm.
Trump approved an emergency declaration for Florida, authorizing FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide assistance for emergency measures.
IRAN ROCKET LAUNCH
Trump tweeted a photo of what he said was the site of a failed rocket launch by Iran, and said the U.S. was “not involved.”
Reuters reported that an Iranian official said the rocket exploded on a launch pad in northern Iran on Thursday. A U.S. official separately said Iran suffered a satellite launch failure. The U.S. has warned Iran against rocket launches over fears that technology could ultimately be used to launch nuclear warheads, as Reuters says.
Trump said he wished Iran luck in determining what went wrong.