Trump was asked repeated questions about his plan to slap tariffs of as high as 100 percent on imported goods Tuesday.

'To me the most beautiful word in the English language is tariff,' Trump said. 'And it's my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm,' he said – in an early acknowledgement of the disputes that would follow.

'I know you're an anti-tariff guy,' Trump told his questioner, John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News.

'You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war,' Micklethwait told him. 'You're going to basically stop trade with China... That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy ... The overall effect could be massive.'

Trump countered: 'I agree. It's going to have a massive effect - positive effect.'

The exchange had Trump ready to take a dig at his interlocutor, a British former editor of the Economist who tried to confront him with predicted effects of his plans.

'It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as negative and then have somebody explain to you that you're totally wrong,' Trump told him.

He said you could make the tariff 'so high, so horrible, so obnoxious' that the companies would come and invest 'right away.' 

Micklethwait countered that there were 40 million jobs in the U.S. 'that rely on trade,' then tried to point out that US consumers can bear the brunt of tariffs through higher prices.

'Critics say your tariffs will end up being like a national sales tax' on consumers, Micklethwait told him. 'Nope,' Trump responded.

Micklethwait then asked him about the math. 'Not the way you figured. I was always very good at mathematics,' Trump told him.

In the wide-ranging discussion there were times when Trump veered into talking about North Korea, South Korea, and the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But it was his interviewer, not the crowd, who was put off by the tangents.