Washington’s Leading Tax Cut Advocates Cheer Trump’s Tariffs Pause

Minutes after President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs he had imposed, Washington’s most prominent tax-cut advocates cheered the dramatic reversal.

President Donald Trump announced on social media that tariffs will fall to a baseline of 10% for 90 days, except for China’s, which will be raised even higher, to 125%.

The gathering at the Capitol was hosted by Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who has long been Washington’s most prominent anti-tax activist.

Norquist hosted a press conference aimed at urging Congress to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, not knowing that the 90-day pause on tariffs would occur as he was speaking.

Ryan Ellis, president of the Center for a Free Economy, was the first to break the news.

“Grover, I wanted to congratulate you on such an effective event, that we didn’t even have to leave the microphone, and we already secured a tax cut for the American people,” Ellis joked as he took the lectern.

“President Trump paused most of the tariffs about five minutes ago.”

Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment, a free market advocacy group, applauded loudly.

The Daily Signal asked the activists whether they were pleased by the pause on tariffs. 

Norquist let his colleagues take the lead on the question.

“I think almost every conservative agrees that the tariffs were bad as an economic policy,” Kerpen said. 

“Where we have a lot of disagreement is, they may be good as a foreign policy. They may be good at negotiating leverage. They may be a way to accomplish other things. And so, if you can use the threat of it, without actually collecting a lot of tax, that’s much better.”

“So, if he thinks he can get the same kind of leverage with it being paused, and can still accomplish his other objectives, it’s a pure win that it’s paused. Because we’ll avoid so much of the economic harm and maybe still accomplish the same things,” he added.

“I think I can speak for everybody here, that I’m glad that the better angels … inside the administration seem to have won out today,” said Ellis.

He then credited Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with the change in policy.

He praised him “for a lot of the good work that he’s done, and a lot of the internal conversations,” adding, “I hope, going forward, that that counsel is followed a lot more than maybe the counsel of others in the administration.” 

Finally, Norquist took the microphone.

Norquist contended that the disruptive nature of tariffs “makes what we’ve been talking about today—moving quickly to get the entire Trump tax cut passed and made permanent—that level of stability, particularly if we’re going to be doing this tariff thing—is increasingly important to get it done.”

“Even if we’ve taken the temperature down on tariffs, we still need a long-term ability of businesses to feel comfortable,” he added.

A reporter asked whether the tariff pause removes urgency to pass a market-stabilizing budget plan through the House of Representatives.

Norquist replied, “It doesn’t, because the ‘pause is ‘pause,’ and it buys us some time, but the problem hasn’t been solved. I mean, we could explode back into a trade war again.”

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