While many conservative media figures are insisting that the stock market’s dive in reaction to Donald Trump’s tariff policies is actually a positive.
Ben Shapiro, a podcaster long known for his strict adherence to conservative politics, is not one of them.
On Friday, during an episode of his podcast, Shapiro said Trump’s tariffs are “probably unconstitutional” and called them “pretty crazy.”
Shapiro is no never-Trump Republican; he has supported and even fundraised for the president. But the recent massive loss of value to global stock markets has left market analysts — and some conservatives — shocked at the president’s actions.
“The president’s vision of international trade is, I’m sorry to say, mistaken,” Shapiro said.
The podcaster said that Trump was off-base in his assertion that the US is getting the raw end of the deal with regard to trade deficits. He said that trade is mutually beneficial and that the Trump administration’s position that “somebody is getting screwed” in every trade deficit is “not true.”
“This is pretty crazy,” he said. “We are punishing countries that have a low tariff rate with us.”
Trump announced his tariff policy on April 2, a day he called “Liberation Day.” The stock market tanked as Trump delivered his speech.
Shapiro said he checked out Trump’s numbers and found that the president was either wrong or lying about the tariff rates of American foreign trading partners.
“I looked at this and I thought, ‘Holy crap. The EU is charging us 39 percent tariff rates on all products?” he said. “Then I thought… that doesn’t sound correct to me. That doesn’t sound right at all, in fact. That sounds totally wild.”
That’s when Shapiro realized Trump was getting his numbers from the trade deficit between partners, which he noted has “nothing to do” with tariff rates.
While it’s not uncommon for conservative media figures to face sharp backlash from their viewers anytime they speak out against Trump, Shapiro earned some commendation from his audience.
According to The Daily Beast, one user wrote, “I applaud you being the first right-wing commentator to criticize Trump. ”
Shapiro was especially appalled by the way Trump’s deficit treated Madagascar, calling the tariff Trump was levying absurdly high. He said that even if there was a trade deficit between the nations, “So the hell what?”
“It’s Madagascar,” he said. “Our trade deficit with Madagascar is a few million dollars, is the idea we have to chisel out of the people of Madagascar extra dollars from American products or we are getting screwed by the great and powerful people of Madagascar? It makes zero sense.”
Shapiro argued that both Trump’s MAGA movement and some messaging from the Democrats that the economy was failing as a “myth.”
The president has insisted that the U.S. economy “went to hell” under former President Joe Biden’s administration. The facts say otherwise — the unemployment rate was low at 4.1 percent when Biden handed over the reins to Trump, and inflation was on its way down, sitting at around 2.9 percent in mid-January.
According to The Guardian, by the end of Biden’s term, the nation’s GDP had also risen to a 3.1 percent rate, stronger than most of the US’s major European counterparts at the same time.
“America does not suck and has not sucked for several decades, economically,” Shapiro argued.
Trump’s economic plan could benefit the U.S. if it had a manufacturing base similar to China’s, but Shapiro noted that wasn’t the case and that even if it were, most Americans would likely not want to work in factories.
“‘Why can’t I have a factory job just like 1955 Ford?‘” he joked. “Yes, I’m sure that you wanted to be in a non-air conditioned factory, riveting all day … that’s your ideal job. No it isn’t.”
The podcaster also argued that there was another time in American history when the U.S. had a surplus in its trade balance but warned it wasn’t a time most people would want to re-live.
“I can name you a period in American history where there was a fairly large surplus in America’s balance of trade,” he said. “The entire Great Depression.”
