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 The Dow fell over 300 points as the opening bell rang Wednesday before pulling back to about 200 points down. The S&P 500 lost about 0.5 percent. It's a significant move, although nowhere near the worst the markets have seen in recent weeks. In February, the Dow dropped more than 1,100 points in a single day as investors worried the economy might start to overheat from the boost from the tax cuts. Now there's a very different concern: a trade war. 
 
 “Buckle your seat belts. We are adding uncertainty, which is the enemy of the markets,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “The chances of NAFTA failing also just rose.” 
 
 The gloomy narrative on Wall Street goes like this: Cohn was the last powerful voice in the Oval Office arguing against the tariffs on steel and aluminum and, more important, against Trump's threats to break up the North American Free Trade Agreement. His resignation is a sign of defeat for the pro-free-trade crowd, which includes many big business leaders, farmers and advocates of a more interconnected world. 
 
 [Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, to resign amid differences on trade policy] 
 
 “The sense among investors was that Gary Cohn, among a few economic advisers, had interposed his body between the president and bad policy, said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Standish Mellon Asset Management. “The bad outcome is not the direct effect of tariffs on a small part of U.S. trade. It is the potential for a contraction in global trade if this is the first falling domino that leads to tit-for-tat retaliation.” 
 
 But some in the manufacturing and blue-collar community are pleased to see Cohn leave, believing that his views were not true to Trump's nationalist movement on trade and immigration. 
 
 “He didn’t resign over Charlottesville. He didn’t resign over immigration. He resigned over trade. I really think that speaks volumes about the Wall Street agenda he has been representing for his entire tenure,” said Alan Tonelson, founder of RealityChek blog, which covers trade and manufacturing and supports most of Trump’s trade policies. “These investment banks have become substantially divorced from the rest of the economy.” 
 
 Cohn's resignation probably means three things: 
 
 Tariffs on steel and aluminum are much more likely (and tough action on China could be next). Trump wants a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on all aluminum imports. Most economists and business leaders, including Cohn, see it as “dumb idea” that will anger U.S. allies such as Canada and Europe and backfire by hurting the economy. When President George W. Bush introduced steel tariffs in 2002, the result was a small hit to growth and more jobs lost than gained. But Trump is not backing down, as Cohn's resignation appears to signal. 
 
 “Not only is this bad for consumers — including firms who use steel and aluminum — but it further increases the odds of retaliation and a trade war,” said Paul Mortimer-Lee, head of U.S. economics at BNP Paribas. 
 
 [Remember Bush’s 2002 steel tariffs? His chief of staff warns Trump not to do the same.] 
 
 The best hope for investors and business leaders fighting the tariffs is that Republicans in Congress will step up even more to pressure Trump to exclude Canada and other key countries from the tariffs. Otherwise, the European Union and many other trading partners are likely to rapidly hit back with tariffs on U.S. industries. 
 
 But there's a lot more coming on trade than just steel and aluminum tariffs. The Trump administration is also in the midst of plans to go after China in what is known as a “Section 301” fight in retaliation for the Chinese allegedly stealing U.S. intellectual property on a wide variety of products including robots and video games. This could set off an even nastier trade fight between the United States and China. 
 
 “The Section 301 action on China will be announced at some point in the near term. That investigation finished in early January,” said Rob Martin, head of U.S. economics at UBS and a former Bush administration economist. “My view is that the Trump administration is just waiting for an opportune time to announce actions.” 
 
 Trump's infrastructure plan lost a champion. Cohn was the key White House leader on infrastructure. He was the one pushing for the use of public-private partnerships to finance the bulk of Trump's infrastructure plan. But there were signs of the rift between the president and Cohn on this, as well. Trump openly said he didn't think public-private partnerships were likely to work. The president's remarks in January came within hours of Cohn’s presenting Republican lawmakers with a detailed plan on how public-private partnerships would form the basis of the White House plan. 
 
 “I think his exit can only be viewed as a setback for infrastructure,” said Martin Klepper, who served most of last year as executive director of the Department of Transportation’s Build America Bureau. “Cohn was a key person in pulling together the Cabinet-level task force that developed the infrastructure plan.” 
 
 While just about everyone in Washington and beyond agrees the United States needs a major upgrade of its infrastructure, how to pay for it remains a thorny question. Cohn kept trying to convince lawmakers that just $200 billion in federal funding could turn into more than $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending because of federal partnerships with private companies and with state and local governments. But GOP leaders remained skeptical, and there has been little action beyond a few symbolic hearings on Capitol Hill. 
 
 The No. 2 Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn (Tex.), even told reporters last week that he wasn't sure an infrastructure bill would get done this year. “I think it will challenging. I certainly would be happy if we could, but we’ve got a lot of things to do, that being one of them, and I don’t know if we will have time to get to that,” Cornyn said. 
 
 “Centrist” solutions on immigration may be in danger. Cohn was a top voice in Trump's ear on many issues, including immigration. The broader business community — from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the powerful Koch brothers — has been lobbying the White House hard to find a solution to allow the “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants who were brought to United States as children, to remain in the country. 
 
 Generally speaking, the business community does not want restrictions on legal immigration and does not favor broad deportations. Cohn helped ensure those views got to Trump. His departure opens the door for Trump aide Stephen Miller, an advocate of restricting legal immigration, to do what adviser Peter Navarro did on trade. 
 
 “Cohn was also key to keeping anti-globalization sentiment from overrunning the administration,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. “Without him there, odds are higher that the administration will double down on its anti-immigration policies.” ||||| Gary Cohn, the White House’s top economic adviser, announced Tuesday that he was leaving the administration amid a major internal clash over President Trump’s sharp and sudden pivot toward protectionist trade policies. 
 
 The departure of Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs who had been an interlocutor between the Trump administration and the business community, is the latest jolt to a White House that has been especially tumultuous in recent weeks and unable to retain some of its top talent. 
 
 His resignation as National Economic Council director will leave the White House without a financial heavyweight who business executives and foreign leaders believed had served as a counter to Trump’s protectionist impulses and as a moderating force in other areas. 
 
 Last week, communications director Hope Hicks resigned. In February, staff secretary Rob Porter was forced out over domestic abuse allegations. That followed the departures of deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Cohn’s deputy on the National Economic Council, Jeremy Katz. 
 
 Taken together, the departures diminish the White House faction of free trade advocates who hold more traditional views on economics and more closely align with Republican leaders in Congress. 
 
 Cohn plans to stay in his job for several weeks and continue to push back on Trump’s planned tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which have threatened to touch off a global trade war, said a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Cohn’s plans. 
 
 [Some steelworkers love Trump’s tariffs. Others fear them.] 
 
 But Cohn’s influence on the president has clearly eroded. In the past week, Trump has said he will impose tariffs that will hit imports from Canada, Germany, Mexico, Britain, Turkey, South Korea and a range of other countries, threatening to escalate the penalties if any nation dares to retaliate. 
 
 This came after Cohn spent months trying to steer Trump away from tariffs and trade wars. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also lobbied against the tariffs. But they were eventually outmaneuvered by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, trade adviser Peter Navarro and ultimately Trump himself. 
 
 Financial markets reacted negatively to Cohn’s announcement. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 200 points, or nearly 1 percent, after the opening bell. 
 
 Global financial markets also were broadly lower Wednesday as traders absorbed the news of Cohn’s departure, which removes a prominent anti-tariff voice from the White House. Asian exchanges were mostly flat. In Europe, Germany’s DAX and other markets trended lower in midday trading. 
 
 “It has been an honor to serve my country and enact pro-growth economic policies to benefit the American people, in particular the passage of historic tax reform,” Cohn said in a statement. “I am grateful to the President for giving me this opportunity and wish him and the Administration great success in the future.” 
 
 Trump said in a statement: “Gary has been my chief economic adviser and did a superb job in driving our agenda, helping to deliver historic tax cuts and reforms and unleashing the American economy once again. He is a rare talent, and I thank him for his dedicated service to the American people.” 
 
 Cohn was seen as an unconventional pick to lead Trump’s economic team because he was a Democrat from Goldman Sachs, a bank Trump had pilloried during the campaign. 
 
 Trump admired Cohn as a wealthy titan of Wall Street, but the two men had an on-again, off-again relationship — which was nearly severed in August after the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. After privately seething over Trump’s claim that “both sides” were responsible for the violence, Cohn voiced his criticism publicly in an interview with the Financial Times that was interpreted as a rebuke of his boss. 
 
 But Trump and Cohn repaired their relationship during last fall’s push for tax cuts, which became the administration’s first major legislative accomplishment. 
 
 The president could cast a wide net in searching for a replacement, though he has told advisers that he wants to consider Larry Kudlow, a media personality and 2016 campaign adviser, according to several people briefed on Trump’s discussions. 
 
 In many ways, Cohn’s National Economic Council was one of the most stable parts of the White House, avoiding the scandals and revolving-door image that the National Security Council and other offices endured. 
 
 Cohn’s departure rattled a number of business executives around the country, many of whom saw the Wall Street veteran as a free-market capitalist who would speak out against those who wanted to pick fights with global trading partners. 
 
 “The protectionists are clearly running the show right now, the economic nationalists are,” said Brian Gardner, managing director of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment banking firm. “If they replaced [Cohn] with another economic nationalist, then it really gets dicey for the markets and investors.” 
 
 Kudlow has been largely supportive of Trump’s economic agenda, but he has expressed concerns about the president’s moves on trade. He has in recent days encouraged Cohn to stay. Reached by phone Tuesday, Kudlow declined to comment. 
 
 Cohn’s departure was first reported by the New York Times and immediately confirmed by White House officials. 
 
 Cohn had first discussed with Trump the possibility of departing the White House in January, a person familiar with the conversation said, having always had the goal of staying in the Trump administration for about a year. He agreed to join Trump at economic meetings in Davos, Switzerland, and then help with the State of the Union address. An infrastructure plan Cohn had spent months trying to design was supposed to be the focus of the early part of this year, but it has been repeatedly sidelined, first for a debate about immigration policy and then by last month’s mass shooting at a Florida high school. 
 
 It was Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who helped persuade Trump to postpone ripping up trade agreements or imposing tariffs late last year to avoid enraging congressional Republicans during the tax debate. 
 
 “I was quite impressed with the job he did,” said Steve Moore, who was an economic adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign. “I don’t always admit I was wrong, but I was wrong about Gary. He was very valuable to Trump. He was a steadying hand.” 
 
 Cohn was not expected to stay long into 2018, but he did outlast the first wave of departures in January and February. The stock market soared in 2017 in part because of global growth but also because of investor enthusiasm about Trump’s deregulatory agenda and focus on tax cuts, items that Cohn helped design. 
 
 But people close to Cohn said he found the pivot toward protectionism this year infuriating, and he wouldn’t force himself to go out in public and defend it. Cohn did not attend Trump’s news conference Tuesday, something he typically does. 
 
 “He was a voice of reason and sanity on economic policy, so I think a lot of people valued his presence and the grounding that he brought to the White House,” said Lanhee Chen, a Republican policy expert and a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. 
 
 Cohn made a last-ditch effort Monday to schedule a meeting for Trump with companies that would be harmed by new steel and aluminum tariffs, but the White House refused to schedule the meeting for the president. 
 
 At the center of the West Wing drama has been a president who aides say is not easily controlled and whose dark moods of late have manifested themselves in private fits of rage as well as policy gyrations. 
 
 [‘Pure madness’: Dark days inside the White House as Trump shocks and rages] 
 
 Trump has chosen to manage his White House as he did his real estate empire, as well as the casts of his hit reality television show “The Apprentice” — by fostering chaos. At a Tuesday afternoon news conference, just two hours before Cohn’s resignation was announced, Trump defended his management style. 
 
 “I like conflict,” the president said. “I like having two people with different points of view, and I certainly have that. And then I make a decision. But I like watching it. I like seeing it. And I think it’s the best way to go.” 
 
 Trump went on to argue that his White House is a talent magnet, even though Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has struggled to recruit experienced candidates for top-level jobs in the administration. 
 
 “I read where, oh, gee, maybe people don’t want to work for Trump,” the president said. “Believe me, everybody wants to work in the White House. They all want a piece of that Oval Office. They want a piece of the West Wing. And not only in terms of, it looks great on their résumé. It’s just a great place to work. It’s got tremendous energy. It’s tough.” 
 
 Trump on Tuesday morning previewed future firings. “I still have some people that I want to change (always seeking perfection),” he wrote in a tweet. 
 
 But asked at the news conference who he had in mind — and whether he was looking to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with whom he has feuded bitterly for months — Trump would not say. 
 
 “I don’t really want to talk about that,” the president said. He added: “There will be people that change. They always change. Sometimes they want to go out and do something else. But they all want to be in the White House. So many people want to come in. I have a choice of anybody.” 
 
 Ashley Parker, Heather Long, Josh Dawsey and Brian Murphy contributed to this report. ||||| For many longtime Republican policy wonks and senior aides on Capitol Hill, Gary Cohn served as a touchstone. He was seen as the rare Trump administration official who did a good job of navigating substantive policy questions as well as the sometimes opaque decision-making process in President Donald Trump’s White House. 
 
 But with his resignation announcement Tuesday, Cohn joins the long list of policy experts who have departed in recent months — a brain drain that leaves the president with fewer people around him who know how to get policy made, and how to stop Trump from moving ahead with unworkable ideas. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Some worry the White House could return to the uncontrolled days immediately following Trump’s inauguration, when many West Wing jobs were still unfilled and former strategist Steve Bannon was writing executive orders with policy adviser Stephen Miller, including the disastrous travel ban that was ultimately knocked down by multiple courts. 
 
 “The number of bad ideas that have come though this White house that were thankfully killed dead — there are too many to count,” a White House official told POLITICO. “With Gary gone, I just think, from a policy perspective, it means disaster.” 
 
 Cohn’s resignation comes a month after staff secretary Rob Porter stepped down amid domestic abuse allegations. Porter, a Harvard Law graduate, had emerged as the White House’s lead policy coordinator, corralling the president’s often-divided advisers in a bid to reach consensus. 
 
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 White House officials were feeling the loss of Porter in recent days, when Trump announced his plans to move forward with steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports before key legal analysis had been completed. One White House official said that “never would have happened” if Porter — who had for months been organizing weekly trade policy meetings with Cabinet secretaries and senior aides — was still in the administration. 
 
 Porter had worked closely with Cohn to persuade Trump to narrow the tariffs. But Cohn told White House staffers on Tuesday that the tariff proposal is not the main reason for his decision to leave. 
 
 In addition to the high-profile resignations of Cohn and Porter, other White House policy experts have also stepped down, including Domestic Policy Council Deputy Director Paul Winfree, NEC Deputy Director Jeremy Katz and technology policy adviser Grace Koh. 
 
 Cohn’s upcoming departure leaves the National Economic Council, which under Trump has become the White House’s policy powerhouse, without a permanent leader. Several other senior officials on the NEC are separately weighing whether to step down in the coming weeks, according to multiple administration officials and outside advisers to the president. 
 
 Many on the NEC had already been considering leaving in the coming months, likely sometime in the spring or summer. In the wake of Cohn’s departure, NEC staffers, many of whom are deeply loyal to Cohn, were discussing speeding up their exits. 
 
 “People are thinking, ‘Maybe I won’t be here as long as I thought I’d be,’” the NEC official said. 
 
 Meanwhile, rumors were circulating on the NEC on Tuesday that Trump could be tempted to tap trade adviser and economic nationalist Peter Navarro to replace Cohn. That decision would likely be met with universal opposition from NEC staffers. 
 
 “No one on this NEC will work for that guy,” one NEC official said. 
 
 But White House officials said it remains unclear who will replace Cohn, and the issue is still under active discussion in the West Wing. 
 
 “What is a little bit worrisome is the question of who replaces him is coming in the middle of this fight on tariffs that has divided the White House between the protectionist point of view and free trade point of view,” said Lanhee Chen, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and policy director to the 2012 Romney-Ryan presidential campaign. “The question of who will run the NEC now is also a question of whether it plugs the NEC into the process in a functional way.” 
 
 The White House has struggled to attract top-tier talent, and high-profile Washington Republicans have said privately that they would not join the administration. 
 
 “Will be making a decision soon on the appointment of new Chief Economic Advisor. Many people wanting the job — will choose wisely!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday night. 
 
 Another possible Cohn replacement, Larry Kudlow, an outside economic adviser to the president and a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan, has heavily criticized Trump’s proposed tariffs, leading to speculation that he won’t get the job. 
 
 “It’s going to be hard to find a good economic mind who supports the president’s current economic agenda on tariffs,” a former White House official said. 
 
 Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney is another potential candidate to replace Cohn, according to one close adviser. Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman, hasn’t spoken publicly about the tariffs since Trump announced them last week. 
 
 “Having a former Goldman Sachs executive is not always the best messenger. It would be nice to have someone communicate it in a more understandable way,” the adviser said. 
 
 Cohn’s departure was celebrated by Trump loyalists who believed he was trying to moderate the president and persuade him to abandon the promises he made during the campaign. 
 
 Just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, one former Trump campaign official sent a POLITICO reporter a message that simply said: “RIP globalists.” 
 
 Earlier Tuesday, some Trump loyalists had criticized Cohn’s ongoing efforts to weaken or overturn the president’s seemingly sudden announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs. 
 
 “I don’t think anyone was prepared for Gary Cohn to launch a one-man war to torpedo the president’s policy,” said the same official. “Gary is going around and openly launching a crusade against the president. And guys like Navarro and some of the other Trump loyalists inside the White House have really been taken aback by how aggressive he’s been.” 
 
 ||||| NEW YORK — Wall Street is losing its main man in the White House. 
 
 Gary Cohn, the hard-charging former Goldman Sachs president who eased market fears about President Donald Trump’s erratic presidency, said Tuesday he would leave in the coming weeks after losing a bruising internal battle over trade. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Cohn, a New York Democrat and avowed free-trader, tried desperately to persuade Trump not to impose sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum, arguing they would kick off a global trade war that could damage the U.S. economy. 
 
 Trump so far has ignored Cohn’s advice, siding with nationalist advisers who strongly favor the tariffs. A meeting planned for Thursday at the White House with executives from companies that could be hurt by tariffs has now been canceled. 
 
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 Cohn, known in his decades on Wall Street as a pugnacious trader, is not leaving the fight right away. He plans to stay on for at least a couple of weeks and continue to battle Trump and the White House nationalists to more carefully tailor the tariffs to avoid antagonizing allies and inviting retribution. 
 
 But he’s given up hope of winning the battle completely, people close to him said. One person close to Cohn called the loss over tariffs a “breaking point” for an adviser who drafted resignation letters last year after Trump’s response to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. 
 
 While the steel loss served as the immediate trigger, Cohn had been planning his exit for over a month. He told Trump six weeks ago that he planned to leave at some point in early 2018 after completing his main agenda item, the $1.5 trillion tax cut the president signed into law late last year. 
 
 Trump asked him to stay to help with his trip to an international economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the State of the Union address. Then he asked him to stay for the rollout of an infrastructure plan. 
 
 Cohn decided within the past few days there would be no perfect time to leave, according to a person familiar with his thinking. Now was the time to pull the trigger, especially given his frustration over the trade fight. Cohn also wanted to start returning calls from top companies offering jobs, something he would not do while still working on policies that could impact those companies. 
 
 There was no big Oval Office meeting or showdown between Trump and Cohn on Tuesday. The pair spent a good bit of time together during the day. Cohn sat in on Trump’s meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, though he didn’t attend their joint news conference. 
 
 Instead, Cohn huddled in his office with NEC staff members to let them know of his plans before the news broke. The tight-knit group shared a few laughs. Nobody was really surprised. They’d expected Cohn’s announcement for weeks, though many expressed sadness afterward. “He’s been an incredible boss, and it’s been one of the most amazing years of my life,” one NEC official said. 
 
 There could be more turnover on the NEC staff following Cohn’s departure, depending on who ascends to the top job. The only name currently in wide circulation is Larry Kudlow, the economic commentator and former Reagan administration official. Kudlow, who urged Cohn to stick around, was caught by surprise by the announcement. Like Cohn, Kudlow has been highly critical of Trump’s decision on tariffs, something that could make it harder for him to get the job. 
 
 While Cohn’s plans to leave were widely known for a while, the bitter internal fight over steel clearly accelerated his departure. 
 
 Last week, Cohn told White House chief of staff John Kelly that if Trump launched a full-scale trade war, he would have to quit. The threat did not stop Trump from announcing the tariffs. And so far Cohn has not been able to slow down the president’s march toward enacting the levies. The president reiterated Tuesday during the joint news conference that he wanted the tariffs and didn’t fear a trade war. 
 
 One main question now is how markets will respond to Cohn’s departure. Dow futures tumbled Tuesday evening as traders digested the news. 
 
 Cohn has been widely seen as a steadying hand in the White House, pushing Trump away from some of his most aggressive instincts on trade and keeping the U.S. in the North American Free Trade Agreement, among other deals. The fear now is that Trump will be fully unleashed unless he hires another figure trusted by Wall Street for the NEC job. 
 
 “Clearly he’s a free-trader, and Wall Street likes free-traders. And he’s got the Goldman Sachs pedigree, and that’s a very comforting thing for people,” said Stephen Massocca of Wedbush Securities. “It's clearly going to be at least a minor negative for markets. But probably not a huge downturn, especially if Trump picks Kudlow, who would be a wonderful choice.” 
 
 In a note to clients Tuesday, Ian Katz of Capital Alpha Partners suggested the White House could now be without anyone with a real understanding of markets. “More than anyone else in the White House, Cohn had credibility with the markets,” he said. “He speaks Wall Street’s language.” 
 
 Cohn for now has no plans to return to Wall Street but is likely to entertain offers from a number of the nation’s largest companies. He grew up in Ohio and bounced around different schools while battling dyslexia. Cohn began his professional career at U.S. Steel and is said by those who know him to want to return to a more Main Street career rather than go back into finance. 
 
 There is no succession plan in place at the NEC, people familiar with the matter said. In addition to Kudlow, OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is on the list, according to one Trump adviser. The president likes both of them, the adviser added — and either could serve the White House well on both the substance of policy as well as with the economic message. 
 
 Andrew Restuccia and Nancy Cook contributed to this report. ||||| SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email 
 
 President Donald Trump demanded economic adviser Gary Cohn’s cooperation on tariffs in a meeting in the Oval Office Tuesday -- asking Cohn directly if he would support his decision to move forward with the plan. 
 
 Cohn would not offer his support, according to two people familiar with the episode -- and just hours later, the White House announced Cohn’s resignation. 
 
 Gary Cohn Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg 
 
 In a way, Cohn’s resignation as director of National Economic Council was exactly as Trump had predicted this week, telling associates that he expected Cohn to quit if Trump went ahead with the tariffs. Trump is expected to announce the moves -- a 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum -- as early as this week. 
 
 Cohn is a free-trade advocate who vociferously opposed Trump’s plan, so his views were well-known. But the moment in the Oval Office brought the two men -- president and adviser -- into direct conflict. 
 
 Trump, during the trade policy meeting in the Oval Office Tuesday, asked for an update on the legal paperwork that will make the tariffs official and discussed the timing of the signing of the tariffs order. He then sought confirmation that everyone -- and especially Cohn -- was willing to stand behind him. 
 
 According to one source with knowledge of the exchange, Trump specifically asked Cohn: We’re all on the same team, right? He then asked if Cohn was going to support the president on the issue. 
 
 Cohn didn’t answer, the people said. 
 
 A source familiar with Cohn’s thinking disputed that Trump demanded loyalty on tariffs in the meeting or asked Cohn to change his mind. 
 
 This person also said that Cohn even agreed with Trump on the need for a tougher stance on China, but that any metals tariffs that also hit Canada, Mexico and the European Union seemed counterproductive. Still, Cohn is prepared to stay until the end of the month to help Trump pick his new economic adviser, this person said. 
 
 Not only that, the person said, Cohn would be willing to come back for an even larger job, including possibly a cabinet post, the person said. All of Trump’s cabinet positions are currently filled. 
 
 Cohn told the president in February that he was underutilized and should have a bigger role, the person added, and if there wasn’t a bigger for him, that he was considering moving on. 
 
 Just hours after the Oval Office meeting on Tuesday, the White House announced Cohn was gone, the latest in a string of staff departures from the White House in recent weeks. 
 
 The tariffs paperwork hadn’t been finished at the time of the meeting, but there was discussion about signing the measures as early as Wednesday but more likely on Thursday, one of the people said. Trump also is considering signing the order during his trip Saturday to Pennsylvania, where there is an upcoming special election for the House, in a district outside Pittsburgh that went heavily for Trump. Still, he is more likely to sign the measure at the White House, the person said.
– President Trump will choose Gary Cohn's replacement as chief economic adviser soon, he promised via Twitter shortly after Cohn announced his departure. "Many people wanting the job - will choose wisely!" Trump wrote. The Washington Post reports that one of the people Trump is considering is media personality Larry Kudlow, one of his 2016 campaign advisers, and Politico reports trade adviser and economic nationalist Peter Navarro and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney are also possibilities. But despite Trump sounding unconcerned, others in the White House are very concerned: "With Gary gone, I just think, from a policy perspective, it means disaster," one official tells Politico. Other aides expressed similar sentiments, explaining that Cohn was one of the few remaining aides who could talk Trump out of bad ideas. Others who spoke to Politico say that Cohn's departure will leave the National Economic Council without a leader, and that others on the NEC who are loyal to Cohn may also head for the door, particularly if Navarro is chosen as his replacement. And then there's the fact that, as Politico puts it, the White House has "struggled to attract top-tier talent," and some high-profile Republicans have privately expressed an unwillingness to take a position there. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has details on the hours before Cohn announced his resignation; sources say Trump demanded Cohn's cooperation on tariffs, Cohn didn't answer, and within hours he had announced his resignation. Politico has more on the backstory of their trade disagreement, and the Washington Post says Dow futures are down and Wall Street is preparing for an "ugly sell-off" over fears of a trade war.