U.S. President Donald J. Trump (C), flanked by Gary Masino (L) of the Sheet Metal Workers Union, Telma Mata (2nd R) of the Heat and Frost Insulators Allied Workers Local 24 and United Brotherhood of Carpenters General President Doug McCarron (R), holds a roundtable meeting at the White House on Jan. 27. 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
President Donald Trump thanked Gary Cohn for his service as economic advisor during a Cabinet meeting Thursday, joking that he still likes him even though he’s a globalist.
“This is Gary Cohn’s last cabinet meeting. He’s been terrific,” President Trump said. “He may be a globalist, but I still like him.”
The president said in one way he is a nationalist because he loves his country.
“I have a feeling you’ll be back.”
As People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) reported, Mr. Cohn’s resignation comes as President Trump plans to return to the message of economic nationalism that fueled by greatest political upset in modern U.S. political history. It’s a victory for the average working class voter who supported President Trump in the 2016 election.
In a statement released by the White House, the free-trader former Goldman Sachs executive said it had been “an honor to serve my country.”
“It has been an honor to serve my country and enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people, in particular the passage of historic tax reform,” Mr. Cohn said in a statement. “I am grateful to the President for giving me this opportunity and wish him and the Administration great success in the future.”
The former New York businessman-turned-President of the United States ran for the highest office in the land vowing to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and withdraw the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Shortly after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order making good on the latter and moving to renegotiate NAFTA on a bilateral basis.
Mr.Cohn was constantly in opposition to the platform of economic nationalism that resulted in the cracking of the Blue Wall in November of 2016. President Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to carry Pennsylvania and Michigan since 1988 and the first to carry Wisconsin since 1984.
He was expected to make a formal announcement this week about his administration’s intention to impose a 25% tariff on imported steel and 10% tariff on imported aluminum. At the meeting, President Trump also said he’ll make a trade announcement following his afternoon meeting.
He said on Monday that he would reconsider proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum if and when a “new and fair NAFTA agreement is signed.”
At the Cabinet meeting, he said that the U.S. will reserve the right to increase, decrease or eliminate the tariffs altogether depending on national security and fairness.
“We’re going to be very fair, we’re going to be very flexible,” President Trump said. “But we’re going to protect the American worker.”
