text: Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, exclusively told "Fox News Sunday" that President Trump bears responsibility for General Motors' decision last month to close five facilities and slash 15 percent of its North American salaried workforce. 
   
   His comments echoed complaints by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was quoted by the Toronto Star at the G20 Summit in Argentina on Friday saying that GM's restructuring was "all the more reason why we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our countries." 
   
   "I do think the way the president has gone about the trade policies, imposing tariffs -- there’s a consequence, there’s a domestic consequence," Cardin told host Chris Wallace. "And clearly General Motors' decisions are in part based upon the tariff issue, so yes it has an impact, and it costs us jobs here in America." 
   
   The GM closures in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland and Ontario drew Trump's ire and led him to threaten to cut all subsidies for the largest American automaker. The layoffs could affect up to 14,000 employees. GM will also cease production of several car models, including the Chevrolet Cruze and the Buick LaCrosse. 
   
   But Cardin sounded a positive note on the 90-day trade truce reached by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which brings a temporary halt to new tariffs between the U.S. and China, as well as the newly signed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trilateral agreement. 
   
   "President Trump has agreed that on Jan. 1, 2019, he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of product at the 10 percent rate, and not raise it to 25 percent at this time," the White House announced. "Over the next 90 days, American and Chinese officials will continue to negotiate lingering disagreements on technology transfer, intellectual property and agriculture." 
   
   CHINESE OFFICIAL SAYS TRUMP IS HARD TO READ, SAYS US WARSHIPS AT CHINA'S DOORSTEPS SPARK TENSION 
   
   "Clearly, it is encouraging to see that we're talking with the Chinese on the trade front," Cardin said. "China has created many problems with trade, many obstacles for free trade. My concern about the president's trade policy is that his first action was to take tariffs against our closest allies based upon national security exceptions. We lost the unity that we needed in dealing with China." 
   
   Speaking separately to "Fox News Sunday," Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt called for more details on the China truce, but agreed with Cardin that the news was positive. 
   
   "People like me who have really been concerned about the president’s stated trade policy can take some encouragement in what happened in the last couple of days, the signing of the U.S. Canada and Mexico agreement -- that’s a big step that 6 months ago or even just a few weeks ago we were concerned that we would not be making that kind of progress," Blunt said. 
   
   "And on the Chinese front you are right, we need more specifics here," he added. "I think it’s hard to win a trade war, and I also think, though, that the facts on the table with China are stronger than any other country in terms of our legitimate concerns, and the more other things that the president can move off the table -- whether it's Canada or Mexico, the EU, Japan -- the more of those things he can move off the table, the more flexibility he has with China." 
   
   The White House has bipartisan support for hitting back at Chinese intellectual property theft. In an interview in June, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ordinarily a fierce Trump critic, agreed with the administration's China policy and said that the country "takes total advantage" of the U.S. 
   
   “Not only do they steal our intellectual property, they keep our good companies out, and say the only way you’re going to be able to sell your American products in China … is if you come to China, make them there, and give us the techniques and intellectual property,” Schumer said. 
   
   For all the developments and progress at the G20, Trump appeared to be in a hurry to leave Argentina. He was filmed seemingly leaving Argentina President Mauricio Macri abruptly on-stage as he lingered awkwardly for a group photo, and was overheard instructing an aide on a hot microphone to "get me out of here." ||||| Cheney addresses Bush ‘41’ criticism, admits he was ‘iron ass’ as vice president 
   
   CLOSE The former president died Friday at the age 94. He leaves behind a decorated legacy. USA TODAY 
   
   Former Vice President Dick Cheney addressed Sunday the "notion that there was some kind of fundamental break" between himself and the late President George H.W. Bush after Bush criticized Cheney's role in his son's administration. 
   
   The elder Bush, who died at 94 in his Houston home on Friday night, made several comments to presidential biographer Jon Meacham in his 2015 book, "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush," that were critical of Cheney's militaristic policy prescriptions after the 9/11 attacks. 
   
   "I don't know he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with," Bush said of Cheney, who served as his secretary of defense for his entire administration. 
   
   More: George Bush's last day started with three eggs, ended with 'I love you' 
   
   "Just iron ass," Bush said of Cheney's attitude after the attacks. He decried Cheney's "seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East." 
   
   Bush was also critical of Cheney's autonomy as his son's vice president and the degree to which he expressed his views publicly. 
   
   More: Here's why VP Mike Pence named George H.W. Bush as his role model for the No. 2 job 
   
   "He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer," Bush said. 
   
   "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Cheney about Bush's remarks to Meacham during a discussion of the 41st president's legacy. 
   
   “I was more, I guess, of an ‘iron ass’ when I was vice president," Cheney conceded. "The thing that had intervened between my time at defense for 41 and my time as vice president was 9/11. We’d had 3,000 of our people killed on 9/11, more people than we lost at Pearl Harbor and we moved, I think legitimately, into a war-time setting rather than simple law enforcement." 
   
   Cheney said Bush reached out to smooth things over after his critical comments became public and sent him a note that said, “Dear Dick, I did it.” 
   
   "And then he went on at great length to tell me what a great American I was," Cheney said. 
   
   Cheney said Bush also invited him to sit at the head table at that year's Alfalfa Club dinner, one of the most exclusive annual events in Washington. 
   
   "That sort of dampened down the notion that there was some kind of fundamental break between Bush and Cheney," the former vice president said. 
   
   More: Trump pardons Scooter Libby, the Cheney aide convicted of lying to the FBI 
   
   More: Christian Bale transforms to a ruthless Dick Cheney in 'Vice' first trailer 
   
   Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/12/02/bush-criticism-cheney/2183449002/
target: – Dick Cheney, an "iron ass"? Yep, he admits he was. On Fox News Sunday, the former vice president addressed the notion of "a fundamental break" between him and the late George HW Bush after Bush accused him of being "just iron ass," USA Today reports. Quoted in the 2015 John Meacham book Destiny and Power, Bush criticized Cheney's "seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything" and said Cheney "had his own empire." Cheney's response: "I was more, I guess, of an 'iron ass' when I was vice president. ... [But] we'd had 3,000 of our people killed on 9/11, more people than we lost at Pearl Harbor and we moved, I think legitimately, into a war-time setting rather than simple law enforcement." For more Sunday talk: GM Plants: "And clearly General Motors' decisions are in part based upon the tariff issue, so yes it has an impact, and it costs us jobs here in America," says Sen. Ben Cardin on Fox News Sunday about tariffs pushing GM to shutter five facilities, per Fox News.