Fox Host Not Reassured by Trump’s Economic Updates: ‘It Starts to Smack of Desperation’

Fox Business host Charles Payne said the Trump administration’s frequent updates about alleged trade negotiations “smack of desperation.”

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump implemented sweeping and massive tariffs on dozens of countries, including major U.S. trading partners. Economists have warned that the move will drive the price of imported goods higher. Trump has falsely claimed that the countries exporting goods to the U.S. will pay the tariffs in question. In reality, tariffs are paid by importers and passed on down through the distribution channel and to the consumer.

Payne joined Tuesday’s Special Report on Fox News, where Bret Baier teed up an exchange from Payne’s Fox Business show, Making Money. A guest told Payne that his investment strategist that he doesn’t want to hear trade deal updates, stating, “Tell me after it’s done.”

The clip ended, and Baier asked Payne whether these regular updates are helping.

“It’s not helping because I think what you need here is, if you’re going to start to really have these conversations, give us some real listed markers,” Payne replied. “Over the weekend, Apollo published a piece that said the average trade deal takes 18 months to put together and 45 months to implement. Obviously, no one wants or hopes that this is going to be the case this time around. But if you come up every other day, ‘Yeah, we just had a great call with so and so, and these guys,’ it starts to take away credibility. It starts to smack of desperation, and we just don’t necessarily need it.”

Payne added, “The American public wants this White House just to level with us.”

Trump and members of his administration have provided many updates on negotiations they say they are having with other nations, though they have provided few if any details. Markets have whipsawed in recent weeks, but remain markedly lower since the president unveiled the tariffs on April 2.

Watch above via Fox News.