Trump Claims Tariff Reversal Announcement 'Was Written From The Heart'

"We don't want to hurt countries that don't need to be hurt," the president told reporters.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday sought to explain his decision to abruptly reverse most of his aggressive global tariffs, claiming it was made “from the heart.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump announced he was reducing tariffs on all countries except China to 10% for 90 days, rather than the higher rates he had originally announced.

Asked how he came to change his mind, even though the White House had said there were no plans for a reversal, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office he had been discussing the idea of a pause with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick “over the last few days.”

Of his social media post announcing the pause, he said Wednesday, “I think it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning, just wrote it up.”

“We didn’t have access to lawyers,” he added. “We wrote it up from our hearts, right? It was written from the heart. And I think it was well written too, but it was written from the heart. It was written as something that I think was very positive for the world and for us, and we don’t want to hurt countries that don’t need to be hurt.”