Sen. Chris Coons said Monday he wasn’t willing to give President Trump any credit for striking a deal with Mexico that avoids tariffs and helps curtail illegal immigration, instead accusing him of creating the conflict.
The senator said Mr. Trump created “a crisis which he then sort of, partially, at the last minute solved.”
“This is classic Trump, spinning up a conflict that fires up his base but destabilizes one of our critical alliances,” Mr. Coons, Delaware Democrat, said on CNN’s New Day.
Mr. Trump announced Friday he would suspend his threat of a tariff, starting at 5 percent and rising as high as 25 percent, after reaching an agreement with Mexico on border security.
While Mr. Coons acknowledged there is a crisis on the border, he accused the president of creating this crisis so that he could solve the problem, make a deal and look better to his base.
“I think President Trump, over and over again, whether with North Korea or Mexico, whether it’s our NATO allies or other places around the world, fires up his base and creates and stokes conflict only so that he can seem to resolve it,” he said.
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“In some cases, they are very real challenges, like security with North Korea, but the ways in which he fires it up through Twitter and then falsely claims to have solved it … I think is a consistent pattern,” he said.
Mr. Coons’ comments come as The New York Times reported over the weekend that Mexico’s National Guard had been planning since March to help curtail migrants and did not bend due to the tariff threats.
This drew anger from Mr. Trump, who said Monday the piece was a “hit job” against him.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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