Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec spoke with American Compass Executive Director Oren Cass on Wednesday’s episode to break down the latest moves by President Trump’s trade team — and whether the 2025 version of what Posobiec calls “The Great Deal” is shaping up to be a smarter, sharper approach than what came before.
“Oren, when we last had you on, we were going through your plan for a bit of restructuring, I guess is the best word, of Trump’s economic deal,” said Posobiec. “It looks as though they may have somewhat taken some of your advice.”
Cass agreed: “I think they’ve made some really good course corrections.”
He pointed specifically to Trump’s decision to postpone a slate of broad reciprocal tariffs that were originally set to hit a wide swath of countries, including close US allies. The initial rollout, Cass said, was creating disruption to what is otherwise a good idea.
“They had this category that they were calling the reciprocal tariffs that were targeted at most countries — a lot of our allies — and intended very importantly to get those allies to change their practices, to have trade practices that are a lot friendlier to the United States,” he explained. Cass said that "slapping all those tariffs on from day one was unsurprisingly causing a lot of disruption, it was causing a lot of costs. I don't think we really need it if the goal is to have new negotiations. So what they've done is to put those on hold, say we want to try to have the negotiations first, and if the negotiations don't get anywhere, then the tariffs are still looming in the background. And so I think that's the right way to treat our allies."
At the same time, China is not getting a pass. In fact, tariffs on Beijing have increased—a move Cass supports, though he cautioned that even there, a measured buildup might be more effective.
“It’s very good that we’re separating China out and saying we have allies that we want to fix this with and have free trade with, and then we have China who is not playing by the rules, is not going to play by the rules, is not a good partner for the United States, and they need to be on the outside looking in.”
Watch the full episode below:
