Andrew Ross Sorkin

our country and business leaders and either other politicians have lived through for a very long time.

The tariffs are the most visible version of that, which is to say that they have a huge impact on not just our businesses exporting to other places, but obviously, you know, what we're able to import, what we're able to manufacture here.

But I think it's just completely

scrambled the calculus for how any business operates.

And they are now thinking in almost every case, whether it's a merger or an investment or where to manufacture something, it is literally how is this going to be perceived and accepted or not accepted by the White House?

Oh, I don't think we're at that point.

I don't think we'll ever be at that point, because to me, when you think about the tariffs for this president, they're the ultimate chess piece.

They're the ultimate piece of leverage.

And what that means ultimately is that you can move them at any moment up or down.

So if there's a country that you want to do a favor for, you can say, you know what?

I can go from 15 percent to 10 percent or, oh, you're not going to do the favor for me.

Well, actually, I can go to 20 or 25 percent.

And so I don't think that these tariffs, which really are, I think, leveraged chess pieces for this president over the rest of the world in large part.

I don't think that they settle to a particular place and I don't think he wants them to settle to a particular place because the moment you think that they're settled is the moment he's actually lost leverage.

You know, I spoke with Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, last week, and he made an important point, which is even if

The Supreme Court decides that the tariffs as constructed today are illegal.

There are a number of avenues and paths with which the White House can continue to use its executive orders to implement tariffs on a, I would describe, almost permanent basis.

The Treasury Secretary said it could be done on a permanent basis.

If you really look into it, I think it's harder than that.

But there are ways for this administration to continue to impose tariffs in all sorts of different and unique ways for sustained periods of time without approaching it the way they have.