Donald Trump ignored advisers' warnings as tariff disputes rocked White House

NEW YORK: "A huge disagreement" in his administration overshadowed US President Donald Trump's tariffs war, according to his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and neither she nor Vice President JD Vance could slow him down.

The tariffs war was not well planned, and Trump's claims that it would fill the nation's coffers and not be a tax on consumers were "so much thinking out loud", she said in candid interviews with Vanity Fair published on Tuesday.

It was "more painful than expected", she admitted.

"There was a huge disagreement over whether (tariffs were) a good idea" among Trump's advisers, but he went ahead, Wiles said.

As Trump prepared to announce his tariffs, ranging from 10 percent to 100 percent on April 2, which he called "Liberation Day", Wiles said she teamed up with Vice President JD Vance to try to apply the brakes.

"We told Donald Trump, 'Hey, let's not talk about tariffs today. Let's wait until we have the team in complete unity and then we'll do it'?", she told the magazine.

But Trump disregarded their advice and went ahead with what he called the reciprocal tariffs, only to hit the pause button for 90 days when stocks tanked, and the bond market fell into a funk.

While some believed it was a panacea, others thought it would be a disaster, the magazine said.

But Trump returned with the tariffs, and hit India with 25 percent tariffs and tacked on another punitive tariff of 25 percent for buying Russian oil.

Another division in the administration is between the mercantilists who focused on what the tariffs would bring to the treasury, and the geostrategists who were concerned about the political and diplomatic fallouts.

In the case of India, for example, while Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick vilified the country and egged on the tariff standoff, the departments of War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have continued the close cooperation in defence and diplomatic fields with an eye on the geostrategic situation where China looms large. (IANS)

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