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Trump Says Cohn Might Return Someday to His Administration

“I have a feeling you’ll be back,” Trump told Cohn.“Absolutely,” Cohn replied.

Trump Says Cohn Might Return Someday to His Administration
U.S. President Donald Trump, center right, speaks as Gary Cohn, director of the U.S. National Economic Council, center left. (Photographer: Chris Kleponis/Pool via Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said Gary Cohn might return to his administration some day even as he teased the departing economic adviser for being weak on tariffs.

Trump told reporters at the beginning of a cabinet meeting Thursday that Cohn might come back but probably not in the same job, joking that the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker is “not quite as strong on those tariffs as we want.”

“I have a feeling you’ll be back,” Trump told Cohn.

“Absolutely,” Cohn said.

Cohn announced his departure Tuesday as the president decided to move forward with a plan to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum imports -- a plan Cohn had vociferously opposed.
Trump said Cohn has been “terrific” as his top economic adviser and predicted “he’s going to go out and make another couple of hundred million” dollars.

“He may be a globalist but I still like him. I mean seriously a globalist, there’s no question,” Trump added. “But you know in his own way he’s a nationalist because he loves our country.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning, Justin Blum

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