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(Bloomberg) — Senator Ted Cruz extended his critique of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and said there are “angels and demons” vying for influence as the White House plans to impose the steepest US trade duties in more than a century.
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One of the angels, said Cruz, is Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top donor and adviser to the president. Over the weekend, Musk said he hoped for an eventual “free-trade zone” between the US and Europe.
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“Elon is one of the angels,” Cruz said on his podcast released Monday. “This is a good, good voice that is focused on US jobs that I hope the president is listening to.”
In a podcast last week, the Texas Republican made a rare break from Trump to warn of “enormous risks” to the US economy should tariffs stay in place over a long time. The fallout would put Republicans at risk of a “bloodbath” in next year’s midterm elections, Cruz said.
Trump and some of his allies have argued that the tariffs will spur talks to lower other countries’ barriers against US exporters. But White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said in a new opinion piece in the Financial Times that the levies “are not a negotiation.”
Cruz’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment on whether he has spoken to the president.
“What I’m urging is for the president to come and make major deals and make them quickly,” Cruz said in his latest podcast. “Look, to calm the stock market down, a few major deals quickly would really, really help.”
Criticism of Trump has been muted from Republicans and Trump supporters even as about $10 trillion in market value has been erased from global stocks. Those speaking out though include hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who warned on social media of an “economic nuclear winter” if Trump doesn’t call a time out on his tariff policy.
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A top executive at Diamondback Energy Inc. also urged the administration to explain how a global trade war will help shale producers.
“This administration better have a plan @SecretaryWright,” Kaes Van’t Hof, president of Diamondback, said in a post on X. US shale is “the only industry that actually built itself in the US, manufactures in the US, grew jobs in the US and improved the trade deficit (and by proxy GDP) in the US over the last decade … smart move.”
West Texas Intermediate, the US oil benchmark, has fallen about 15% since Thursday to trade at around $61 a barrel. That’s below the $65 threshold many companies need to profitably drill new wells in Texas and surrounding states, according to a survey last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
—With assistance from David Wethe and Pierre Paulden.
(Updates with Ackman in eighth paragraph.)
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