Senator Ted Cruz says the fight over tariffs inside the Trump administration comes down to two positions, and he named the Treasury Secretary as being on his side. "There are two camps in the Trump administration," Cruz said on the PBD Podcast in a clip published in early September. "Camp number one views tariffs or the threats of tariffs as leverage to get our trading partners to open up their markets, to reduce their tariffs, to repeal non-tariff barriers. I think Scott Bessent is in that camp. I am very much in that camp. There's a second camp that views tariffs not as leverage to open up foreign markets, but as the end in and of itself. They just want high tariffs forever."
His characterization of the second camp is his own and should be read as such. "It's pretty closely linked to an isolationist foreign policy," he said. "The idea is we don't want to deal with the world at all. We want high tariffs and just stay at home and say to hell with everyone."
