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National

The following is a rare account of President Trump in a small Oval Office meeting, venting at senior staff for sometimes resisting his hawkish trade agenda.

This account — confirmed by sources with knowledge of the meeting and undisputed by the White House — hints at where Trump may be heading with his trade agenda. And it shows he believes some of his top economic advisors are resisting his agenda because they are "globalists."

The scene: The Oval Office, during Gen. Kelly's first week as Chief of Staff. Kelly convened a meeting to discuss the administration's plans to investigate China for stealing American intellectual property and technology. Kelly stood beside Trump, behind the Resolute desk. In front of the desk were U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, senior trade adviser Peter Navarro, top economic adviser Gary Cohn, and Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Trump, addressing Kelly, said, "John, you haven't been in a trade discussion before, so I want to share with you my views. For the last six months, this same group of geniuses comes in here all the time and I tell them, 'Tariffs. I want tariffs.' And what do they do? They bring me IP. I can't put a tariff on IP." (Most in the room understood that the president can, in fact, use tariffs to combat Chinese IP theft.)

"China is laughing at us," Trump added. "Laughing."

Kelly responded: "Yes sir, I understand, you want tariffs."

Gary Cohn, who opposes tariffs and the protectionist trade measures pushed by the Bannonites, had his shoulders slumped and was clearly appalled by the situation.

Staff secretary Rob Porter, who is a key mediator in such meetings, said to the president: "Sir, do you not want to sign this?" He was referring to Trump's memo prodding Lighthizer to investigate China — which may lead to tariffs against Beijing.

Trump replied: "No, I'll sign it, but it's not what I've asked for the last six months." He turned to Kelly: "So, John, I want you to know, this is my view. I want tariffs. And I want someone to bring me some tariffs."

Kelly replied: "Yes sir, understood sir, I have it."

At one point in the meeting, Navarro pulled out a foam board chart. Trump didn't pay attention to it, saying "I don't even know what I'm looking at here."

Trump made sure the meeting ended with no confusion as to what he wanted.

"John, let me tell you why they didn't bring me any tariffs," he said. "I know there are some people in the room right now that are upset. I know there are some globalists in the room right now. And they don't want them, John, they don't want the tariffs. But I'm telling you, I want tariffs."

Kelly broke up the meeting and said the group would work things out and reconvene at the appropriate time.

A White House official responded to the above account by telling Axios: "The president has been very clear about his agenda as it relates to trade. Discussions pertaining to specific tariffs and trade deals are ongoing and have already resulted in many positive developments."

Be smart: The nationalists in the White House took public credit for the China IP policy, arguing at the time that it would lead to a much-needed crackdown on Beijing. But now that he's outside of the White House, you should expect Bannon and his allies to argue that what's been done so far isn't enough, and that Trump needs to treat China as an adversary in an economic war.

Exclusive: Trump vents in Oval Office, "I want tariffs. Bring me some tariffs!"

Inside the meeting, where Trump accused his "globalist" advisers of resisting his trade agenda

Politics

International trade

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World

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

Finish Line

Axios Finish Line

Meet Ava. She senses emotional nuance in a photo, and quickly finds others conveying the same vibe — the "emptiness" of a solitary woman, standing against a solid backdrop; a large table, bare of all but an item or two.

Ava is the intelligent invention of VSCO, an Oakland, CA., startup best known for a photo editing and sharing app that is wildly popular among teens. But she is also much more, reflecting a big new creative trend:

Artificial intelligence is creating serious art and music

It is pointing the way to smart style and fashion

It can judge landscapes, of potential use to urban designers

And with Ava, AI is showing a potential future of advertising: no longer ignoring customer aesthetic tastes, ad firms could base promotional decisions on them. You like the feel of a photo but can't quite put your finger on why? Ava can go to work and find more that deliver the same emotion, associating that same good feeling with the advertised brand.

What's new: Platforms like Pinterest and Instagram also use AI to recognize images based on people and places. But VSCO says its technology differs in detecting artistic nuance. And Ava is still going to school. "We're taking Ava through an education of art history," co-founder Joel Flory tells Axios.

In the world of social mobile apps, "VSCO is taking advantage of an existing trend (our phones are our cameras, they are awesome, and we love to share photos)" and gearing that toward professionals, Forrester analyst Julie Ask said in an email exchange.

Says CEO Flory: Ava's long-term goal is to "make [those professionals] feel like they're taken care of" by providing an automated, personalized stream of inspiring images.

Right now, VSCO has human curators picking out content for advertisers like Powerbar to use in ad campaigns. Powerbar's Jennifer Hirst says Ava is unique in terms of what she finds on offer from ad firms. Consumers are rejecting stock photos, and require a more customized approach.

Soon Ava will be able to do that curation automatically. The idea is that Ava could set up companies with a constant stream of original content.

How it works: VSCO exposes Ava to large pools of photos that live on the company's database, using machine learning to train the bot to identify the highly subjective elements of emotions and observation inherent in images. She looks at colors and tones to decipher a photo's feel, and tags elements like "emptiness" and "aridity." And when studying an artist's entire body of work, Ava can pick out themes and styles. Watch this video.

Ava used for recommended images (1).mp4

Humans won't be out of the picture: "This tool isn't going to replace the human curator," says Sarah Schaffer, managing director at HZ Content Studio — a branding agency. "As much as AI is the next big thing … there's still that emotion and empathy that images can evoke in the human sense that, I think, it would be really hard for a computer to mimic." Flory says VSCO's own human curators are still "essential" to Ava's process. They're the ones teaching her.

Artificial intelligence is getting creative

Art, music, urban planning and now advertising

From Powerbar's VSCO campaign. (Laurel Golio/VSCO)

Future

Artificial intelligence

Technology

Artificial Intelligence

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Sunday's top stories

Exclusive: Trump vents in Oval Office, "I want tariffs. Bring me some tariffs!"

Artificial intelligence is getting creative