Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, whose outlet has historically showered President Donald Trump with favorable coverage, on Friday took a shot at the president’s escalating trade war with China, accusing Trump of “flailing around.”
“The best I can tell, the American president can’t order U.S. companies how they’re going to do their sales and where they’re going to have their supply chains,” Wallace said during an appearance on “America’s Newsroom.” “We have a free-market, capitalist system.”
Earlier that afternoon, in a flurry of outraged tweets, Trump had accused China of stealing money from the U.S. and ordered American companies to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.”
“My guess is that most people in this country wouldn’t want to see the president be able to do this,” Wallace said.
He also raised concerns also over Trump’s targeting of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whom the president declared an “enemy” of the nation.
“When you have the president of the United States sort of flailing around this way and ordering companies to move back to the U.S. and saying that the head of the Federal Reserve is an enemy of the country, is that going to create more consumer confidence about the state of the economy or not?” Wallace said.
The president’s tirade began shortly after China announced that it would retaliate against the U.S. with 5% and 10% tariffs on about $75 billion in American products on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, if Trump moves forward with his plan to slap tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods on those dates.
Trump’s tweetstorm sent the stock market skidding into session lows, wiping out weekly gains.
Wallace’s remarks on Friday are just the latest instance of the anchor breaking ranks with Fox News’ favorable treatment of Trump. In May, the president knocked Wallace for hosting a town hall discussion with Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, griping that the network was moving to the “losing” side in covering his left-wing challengers.