Trump suggests companies complaining about tariffs are 'badly run and weak' with 'bad management'

• President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that companies who have pushed back against his escalating trade disputes have done so in an attempt to shift blame away from internal mismanagement.
• Trump has sought to blame others for backlash over his standoffs with China and other trading partners.
• But hundreds of companies testified before US trade officials this year to push back against tariffs, which they said would raise prices and threaten jobs.
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President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that companies who have pushed back against his escalating trade disputes have done so in an attempt to shift blame away from internal mismanagement.

"Badly run and weak companies are smartly blaming these small Tariffs instead of themselves for bad management...and who can really blame them for doing that? Excuses!" the president wrote on Twitter, without elaborating.

The White House did not immediately respond to an email requesting clarification.

Trump has sought to blame others for backlash over his standoffs with China and other trading partners, which have fueled existing concerns about slowing growth in the US and elsewhere. Polls out this month suggested support for his approach to the economy has waned and that Republicans would at least partly blame him in the event of a recession.

Hundreds of companies testified before US trade officials this year to push back against tariffs, which they said would raise prices and threaten jobs at home. Retaliatory measures have also hurt Americans, causing particular pain among farmers and those who rely on access to China's market.

The Trump administration has struggled to win trade concessions from China over the past year, casting uncertainty on the prospect of a deal to defuse tensions. The two sides raised tariffs on each other's products this month and announced plans to significantly broaden their lists of targeted products on September 1 and December 15.

Trump this month acknowledged for the first time that such a move could hurt the US. But he has continued to pin blame for any perceived trouble in the economy on others, from journalists to the Federal Reserve.

"If the Fed would cut, we would have one of the biggest Stock Market increases in a long time," he wrote Friday.

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