As financial markets teetered under pressure from escalating global tariffs, a last-minute intervention inside the White House on April 9 led to one of the most surprising reversals of President Donald Trump’s trade agenda.
According to a detailed report from The Wall Street Journal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seized a rare opportunity to convince Trump to pause some of his planned tariffs—without the knowledge or input of trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Navarro, a long-time proponent of aggressive tariffs, had been a persistent presence around the Oval Office since Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” event marking the rollout of sweeping trade measures.
With Navarro scheduled to meet economic adviser Kevin Hassett elsewhere in the White House that morning, Bessent and Lutnick took their shot. In an unscheduled meeting with Trump, the two urged a temporary pause on certain tariffs to calm markets and avoid further financial fallout.
The stock market had plunged in early April as tariffs kicked in, and bond markets—typically a safe haven—showed signs of distress. As markets spiraled, Bessent and Lutnick stayed with Trump until he tapped out a Truth Social post announcing the pause. The surprise move immediately sent stocks soaring and helped stabilize Treasury markets.
Later that day, Trump said markets were “getting yippy” and that signals from the bond market had caught his attention. Just hours earlier, he had posted a message urging investors to “stay cool,” suggesting no shift was imminent.
Navarro, caught off guard, dismissed the story as “more mischief from anonymous sources seeking to divide and conquer the trade team.”
Details like this show tensions between pro-tariff hardliners like Navarro and more market-conscious voices like Bessent and Lutnick—two rivals who joined forces, at least briefly, to alter the course of U.S. trade policy.
