Brown challenges Lutnick: Will Trump back down on tariffs?

(CNN) — Top Trump administration officials are offering mixed messaging on the possibility of negotiations on the president’s newly announced tariffs, framing the move as a necessary economic reset and downplaying severe market volatility and uncertainty.

President Donald Trump has long cast himself as a dealmaker — and has left the door open to cutting tariff deals with countries. But messaging from his top economic lieutenants Sunday painted a murkier picture about the possibility of relief.

Trump last week announced tariffs of at least 10% across all countries, with rates going even higher for 60 countries deemed the “worst offenders.” The universal 10% rate went into effect Saturday, while the customized rates will take effect Wednesday.

More than 50 countries have approached the White House to talk about lowering tariffs in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement, officials said Sunday.

That outreach, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” shows “that all these countries know that they’ve been ripping us off, and the day has come for that to end.”

Though the president has previously paused tariffs to allow for negotiation in other situations, Lutnick made clear that the administration plans to follow through on the tariffs set to go into effect Wednesday.

“There is no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks. That is sort of obvious. The president needs to reset global trade,” he said, adding, “He announced it, and he wasn’t kidding, the tariffs are coming.”

CNN has reported that the Trump administration is in active discussions with Israel, Vietnam and India about the possibility of bespoke trade deals, with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to meet with Trump at the White House on Monday for direct talks.

But asked about the example of Vietnam and the potential lifting of tariffs, Trump’s senior counselor on trade and manufacturing, Peter Navarro, said the administration wasn’t negotiating.

“This is not a negotiation. This is a national emergency based on a trade deficit that’s gotten out of control because of cheating. We’re always willing to listen, that’s what Donald Trump does best,” he said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Navarro added, “But I want to just say to the world here: If you want to come and talk to us, don’t say you want to lower the tariffs and be done with it. It’s the non-tariff cheating. Stop manipulating their currency, stop dumping stuff in.”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was also unable to clearly state whether tariffs are here to stay or whether there was room for deals.

“This is the ultimate dealmaker who is a businessman at the head of our government. … But the president is resolute in his focus and his boldness and his fearlessness and in his relentlessness to ensure that we’re putting America first by using these tariffs,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that Trump has “created maximum leverage for himself.”

“It’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Elon Musk, one of Trump’s most influential advisors and the face of the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, said Saturday that he hopes for a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the United States, indicating room for negotiation.

“At the end of the day, I hope it’s agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free-trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk said in a video-link interview with Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister and the leader of the far-right League party, during a League congress in Florence.

On Sunday, the administration officials repeatedly downplayed the economic upheaval rocking markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down more than 10% from its most recent high and the Nasdaq composite more than 20%. By the time the market closed Friday, the Dow had posted its biggest back-to-back losses since March 2020, during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Navarro urged American investors to “sit tight” and “not to panic.”

“The smart strategy is not to panic, just stay in. Because we are going to have the biggest boom in the stock market we’ve ever seen under the Trump policies. … People should just sit tight — let that market find its bottom. Don’t get shook out by the panic in the media, and life is going to be beautiful under Donald John Trump,” he said.

With economists escalating concerns about the possibility of recession, Bessent said he rejected the assumption.

“There doesn’t have to be a recession. Who knows how the market is going to react in a day, in a week? What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity,” he said.

Goldman Sachs analysts in a note last week said economic growth driven by Trump’s fiscal policies would not be able to make up for the damage done by his massive tariff plan.

Rollins took issue with the characterization of the markets crashing and characterized it as an adjustment.

“As the economy, the market, begins to adjust, we will see a more positive — as we move, I believe, very quickly,” she told CNN.

Rollins also indicated there could be support for farmers impacted by the tariffs, pointing to previous relief during Trump’s first term.

“We have to be prepared that if there is longer-term damage … we will make sure that we have the funds in working with the senators and working with the appropriators, that we can do what we did last time,” she said.

For his part, the president returned to familiar patterns as anxious Americans watched their retirement accounts plummet, spending each of the past four days at one of his South Florida golf properties.

As protesters assembled to demonstrate against Trump’s tariff policies across the country — including in West Palm Beach — the White House offered an official statement announcing that the president won a golf tournament at his club Saturday.

“The President won his second round matchup of the Senior Club Championship today in Jupiter, FL, and advances to the Championship Round tomorrow,” the statement said.

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the split-screen image “may end up being the most enduring image of the Trump presidency”

“That is — the president out on a golf cart while people’s retirement is in flames,” he said.

CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg and Christian Sierra contributed to this report.

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