Longtime GOP strategist and commenter Karl Rove predicts President Donald Trump’s tariff policies will cost Republicans next year’s midterms, calling the administration’s messaging “a muddled mess.”
“The story isn’t good for the GOP,” Rove said in a column published in The Wall Street Journal Wednesday.
Rove warned fellow Republicans that Trump’s “tariff demands are weighing him down” as his general job approval sinks and voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, citing data from RealClearPolitics.
Trump and Rove have clashed in recent weeks as the Bush administration’s senior adviser became critical of the president’s strategy.
Last month Rove said Trump’s approval ratings are in “bad shape” when it comes to the economy. He also appeared on Fox advising the president to cooperate with the courts in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia deportation case. Trump responded on Truth Social by calling Rove “a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!”
Now Rove is warning Republicans that “the president’s frenetic back-and-forth on the subject, declaring a trade war one day then postponing new tariffs the next, leaves voters confused.”
A more recent example of Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff policy happened last week when he threatened to impose a 50% tariffs on imports from the European Union. That threat was backtracked on Sunday when EU heads asked to extend his deadline for trade talks until July 9.
“Maybe these apparent flip-flops were all planned by the master of the ‘Art of the Deal.’ But to many, it looks like cleanup on aisle six,” Rove said.
Rove’s sentiment was felt in Wall Street as investors came up with a new term to describe Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, called “TACO,” which is code for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
“The administration’s messaging is a muddled mess,” Rove said, telling Republicans Trump should look towards “reciprocity,” a policy he describes as “if countries lower their tariffs, we’ll lower ours.”
Rove ended the column by saying “voters won’t blame foreign countries for higher prices or fewer goods. They’ll blame Donald Trump and his Republican Party.”