As stock markets around the world continue to drop amid fears over his attempt to blow up the world’s trade system, Donald Trump says the massive import taxes he is imposing on Americans will bring about a massive victory for his Republican Party in next year’s midterm elections.
Speaking to a group of GOP officeholders and deep-pocketed Republican donors at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual fundraising gala in Washington, Trump said the stage is now “set for a monumental victory for the Republicans in the midterms” on account of his policies, which most mainstream economists and business experts say will supercharge inflation and threaten America’s status as the world’s leading economy with a grievous self-inflicted wound.
“I really think we’re helped a lot by the tariffs situation. It’s great,” he said.
The president, wearing a tuxedo at the black tie fundraiser held at the National Building Museum, said he is “the only one” who has the smarts to weaponize import taxes as a way of bullying manufacturers into reversing decades of supply chain integration across the globe and reshoring production to the United States.
Most mainstream experts have denounced his plan to use across-the-board tariffs, which are taxes paid by American importers and passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, condemning them as unnecessary and inflationary.
Stock markets have dropped precipitously since he announced a baseline levy of ten percent on imports from all countries and even higher tariffs he falsely describes as “reciprocal” that are based on an unscientific formula derived from trade deficit data, as well as retaliatory tariffs he is imposing on Chinese imports that will effectively double the cost of anything imported from China starting at midnight on Tuesday.
But Trump maintains that he is correct and everyone else is wrong about the dangers of tariffs.
“I know what the hell I’m doing. I know what I’m doing, and you know what I’m doing too,” he said.
“I’m the only one that would have done the tariffs, because everybody was afraid. They were afraid of being criticized, because the globalists will go after you,” he added.
Trump claimed that other countries are paying the tariffs, including the whopping 104 percent levy on Chinese goods, and said the tariffs are a way of turning the tables on partners who have mistreated the U.S.
“Countries are paying tariffs right now, China’s paying a 104 percent tariff … many countries have, they’ve ripped us off left and right, but now it’s our turn to do the ripping. That’s okay,” he said.
In fact, Trump’s claim is nowhere grounded in reality because tariffs are import taxes that are charged to importers by the United States government as a condition of allowing imports into the country.
The U.S. has no power to tax other governments and there’s no mechanism by which other governments can be forced to pay taxes as a condition of American importers being permitted to import foreign goods.
Yet the president kept up the lie as he addressed the well-heeled crowd, telling them that China would “now pay a big number to our treasury” as he threatened to impose “a major tax” on Americans’ pharmaceutical imports.
“Don’t let them keep telling you that this is a tax on our people. I hate that,” he said.
The president’s vow to keep taxing his own people because he believes it punishes foreign governments comes as Wall Street continued a days-long downward trend while Washington and Beijing continue to trade increasingly stormy rhetoric.
The new 50 percent tariffs on Chinese imports amounts to a near-doubling of the 54 per cent tariffs Mr Trump had initially planned to impose on China — with the US president adding the second 50 per cent on Monday after Beijing vowed to retaliate with levies of 34 per cent on US goods.
