The comment from the Republican senator came during a Finance Committee hearing where Greer answered concerns about the dramatic trade policy set to take effect Wednesday at midnight.
Tillis described his phrase as a concept from management consulting that means someone has to be accountable.
“You can certainly always talk to me,” Greer said in response. “I am at the tip of the spear, certainly.”
“I wish you well,″ Tillis later told Greer. ”But I am skeptical.’’
Trump announced the tariffs plan last week in an event he called "Liberation Day," saying they were aimed at resolving a longtime trade deficit with partners around the world. Some Republicans have defended the tariffs, levied across dozens of countries, as a way to create leverage. Democrats, economists and other countries have blasted the plan, emphasizing deep and negative effects for U.S. consumers, as well as wider geopolitical consequences. Several economists have said the formula the White House used to develop the tariffs, which were much higher than expected, is flawed and misunderstands some key trade metrics."
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| Source:PBS NewsHour with a look at U.S. Senator Thom Thillis (Republican, North Carolina) U.S. Senator Ron Johnson in the background. But you couldn't pay him anything to get him to criticize any of President Trump's policies, if he thought that could hurt him with MAGA voters in Wisconsin. |
From the PBS NewsHour
From Mediate:
"Republican Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) questioned Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, during a Senate hearing on Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs and asked Greer if his is the “throat to choke” if the economy crashes.
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Greer, thank you for being here. Back in the 90s, I was in management consulting and there was a new platform that came out that promised to transform the business industry, ERP. Some of the early attempts at implementing the system proposed an alla prima approach. Let’s do it all at once. Let’s change the plumbing out. Let’s get it all in, get it done, rip the band-aid off,” Tillis began, adding:
It proved to be hugely unsuccessful. There are a lot of very visible projects and the industry decided there needed to be a methodical sort of prioritization of what parts of the business needed to perform better sooner and how do you layer onto that a comprehensive strategy.
It looks like we’ve got a novel approach here in terms of an alla prima approach. I’m not a trade expert and I’m going to question it at this point. I do have a question about at the end of the day– the other thing in management consulting we like to focus on is this concept of one throat to choke.
In other words, when you’re finally taking a look at a strategy, someone has to own it. And you can’t say that it’s the president or the vice president. So my first question to you, in this scenario, the decision maker who decided the alla prima approach, who has obviously had to have spent time anticipating what we saw in the markets and some of the pushback, I’m assuming this all got gamed out, because it’s a novel approach, it need to be thought out. Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?
“Well, Senator, you can certainly always talk to me, but I will-” answer Greer as Tillis interjected, “But are you at the tip of the spear...
From Mediate
If Senator Thillis just asked me the question: "Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?" Before I would answer that question, directly, I would tell him about a certain scene from Airplane! (1980). For anyone who isn't familiar with that film:
"This spoof comedy takes shots at the slew of disaster movies that were released in the 70s. When the passengers and crew of a jet are incapacitated due to food poisoning, a rogue pilot with a drinking problem must cooperate with his ex-girlfriend turned stewardess to bring the plane to a safe landing."
From IMDB.
There's a specific scene where the passengers are aware that the plane is in a lot of trouble. I mean, there's literally an escaped mental patient... and if that's not bad enough, he's 1 of the passengers whose brought in to try to fly and land the plane. And if you haven't fainted yet from that, this might knock you out: the escaped mental patient, airline pilot, is also an alcoholic. Who has lost so many braincells, he sounds like Donald Trump at 1 of his press conferences. Actually, when he tries to take a drink of anything, he spills it on himself, instead.
But the specific scene that relates here to the question that Senator Thillis posed, was when the passengers know they're in a lot of trouble and the chances of them surviving this flight aren't very good. (But only because of some of the reasons I just mentioned) There's 1 woman in particular, who goes hysterical and can't get ahold of herself and there's this long line of passengers on the plane who want their opportunity to calm her down.
President Trump's tariff strategy is already failing. Perhaps the last leader in the world, certainly of a large country with a large economy, that the People's Republic of China, or the European Union, Canada, Mexico, etc, would ever be afraid of, would be Donald J. Trump. If business becomes too expensive for them in America, they have a lot of other countries to go to instead.
The question is when will and who will the voters blame for Trumpenomics. And to go back to Senator Tillis's question: "Whose Throat Do I Get To Choke If Tariff Approach Fails?" I believe you are going to see long lines of people at political rallies, who would want to choke the hell out of Donald Trump for applying this braindead approach to economics. Except it won't be a hilarious, Hollywood movie scene. It will be real life.
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