As the White House prepares to release its tax reform plan on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC he believes President Donald Trump would be willing allow a higher budget deficit in the near term in hopes of spurring a more robust economy down the road.
"The president seems to be making it clear that if he needs a little higher near-term deficit out of which we can grow ... it sounds as though he's up for that," Ross said on "Squawk Box" on Tuesday.
Asked about whether the polarizing border adjustment import tax has a chance of becoming part of the process to cut corporate taxes, Ross said, "I don't know that it's dead because the budget that's being put in will be an opening salvo in the whole tax negotiation. So we'll have to see what comes out the other end."
The border tax is a provision of the House Republican plan to help pay for an overall reduction in the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent.
While noncommittal on the border tax, Trump reportedly wants to a deeper corporate tax rate cut. The president has instructed his advisors to make reducing the business rate to 15 percent a centerpiece of his tax-cut blueprint, according to The New York Times.