Former President and future White House hopeful Donald Trump is making expanded tariffs on foreign imports a central tenet of his 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump, who surrendered himself for booking at a Fulton County jail in Georgia Thursday on charges stemming from his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, has reiterated his goal to instate a universal baseline tariff on all goods imported into the U.S.
According to the Washington Post, Trump met with economic advisors including Stephen Moore and former House speaker Newt Gingrich last week to discuss the plan. Last Thursday, Trump told Fox News anchor Larry Kudlow, “I think when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay automatically, let’s say a 10-percent tax.” That would amount to “a massive amount of money” that could pay off the national debt, he said.
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Trump also wants to match the duties that other countries impose on U.S. goods. “If they charge us, we charge that—very simple,” Trump told Fox News. “Either they’ll wipe out the tax and so will we, or we’ll take in a lot of money—and that’s OK, too.”
The White House countered Trump’s proposal, which would institute taxes on goods currently entering the country duty free under trade agreements and preference programs. The cost of additional tariffs on goods from allied markets would be passed along to consumers already dealing with financial strain, the Biden administration said.
“President Biden strongly opposes plans to hurt hardworking families with higher prices and higher inflation, as even economists who served in the Trump White House warn such an agenda would,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement. “Combining a sweeping tariff tax on the middle class, with more trickle-down tax welfare for rich special interests, would stifle economic growth and fuel inflation,” he added.
“President Biden’s top priority is to protect the higher wages, lower costs, and progress against global inflation he’s delivering for middle class families, which has now forced inflation lower in the United States than any wealthy peer country,” Bates continued. “That means continuing to bring jobs back to America at the strongest pace in decades, an unfulfilled promise from the last administration that this president is making a reality, and continuing to work together with our allies against trade abuses committed by countries like China.”
Biden has recently stepped up his rhetoric against China by calling President Xi Jinping a “dictator” and China’s economy “a ticking time bomb”. Americans are generally souring on China, with 66 percent of surveyed U.S. consumers saying they would probably back a presidential candidate who supports new tariffs on Chinese imports. Biden has maintained the Trump-era Section 301 duties on China-made goods, which took effect in 2018, despite companies operating in China calling for their removal.
