This is John Batchler, a conversation with colleague Brett Arons of MarketWatch about Donald

Trump's long-held belief in tariffs, not a one-off, not a negotiating strategy, but tariffs as a way

forward. Brett documents it. Other people have documented it. And what we're living through now right now is a new way

of understanding income for the United States of America and Donald Trump's understanding of

fairness in trade. This segment begins with asking Brett about the remark by Elon Musk

that appears in these last hours to disapprove of Donald Trump's understanding of tariffs.

And then again, Donald Trump has long believed like this,

and Elon Musk, though, he's heavily influential and certainly a fresh voice in the Republican Party

is not going to reverse, at least right now, Mr. Trump's opinions of how to use tariffs.

Here's Brett to explain.

More of this tonight.

I think ultimately you have to just shrug. I don't, you know, Elon Musk is not writing the

trade policy of the Trump administration. I do think ultimately Donald Trump is writing the trade

policy. My old friend, Brendan Sims, who is now a professor, a full professor, chair at Cambridge

University, he and I knew each other back in grad school. He wrote a book or co-authored a book

about Donald Trump, which came out in just when Donald Trump won election the first time in

2016, essentially saying that Donald Trump had a pretty

coherent, had shown throughout his life a pretty coherent philosophy about international relations.

And it was essentially about, you know, American decline or American relative decline.

And he, you know, yearned for the days, you know, after like after the Second World War,

when America dominated the world's manufacturing and everything was made in the USA and all

the rest of it. And Donald Trump actually has a, essentially a philosophy, and he is talking,

...