White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed she had the “facts” to back up Donald Trump’s trade war-launching tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, but stopped short of saying anything actually true.
During an interview with Fox News Monday night, host Sean Hannity opined that people weren’t talking enough about the tariffs as a rhetorical tool in negotiations with foreign countries, and instead were too focused on how “bad, bad, bad” they are.
“Why don’t people understand the president is a never-ending negotiator?” Hannity asked.
“He’s a never-ending negotiator, it’s the art of the deal,” Leavitt replied.
“But also, the president has proven, as he did in his first term, that tariffs can bring good-paying jobs back here to the United States of America. They protect critical industries here at home. And President Trump is serious when he says he wants to make America the manufacturing superpower of the world,” she continued.
So, even Trump’s chief propagandist seems a little confused about whether the tariffs are a masterful bluff or a legitimate economic policy. Leavitt seemed intent on painting the tariffs as both—carefully eliding the fact that Trump’s so-called negotiations might better be understood as a global trade war that will inevitably affect the lives of everyday Americans.
It’s also important to note that the tariffs that Trump levied during his first term didn’t actually demonstrate any of what Leavitt claims, so her rationale for his newest round of tariffs falls completely flat.
The first Trump administration placed tariffs on Chinese goods, solar panels, washing machines, steel, and aluminum. And ultimately, this had little impact on the economy, positively or negatively. The tariffs certainly never delivered on Trump’s promise of more factory jobs.
This time, Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican exports and 10 percent tariff on Chinese exports are likely to have a greater impact because they will restrict a wider range of products, as opposed to his previous tariffs, which were placed on industrial, rather than consumer, products.
During her appearance on Fox News, Leavitt gushed about Trump and claimed to have the statistics to back up his masterful tariff plot.
“So, there’s no spin, it’s all truth. We have the facts on our side, you know, in explaining these tariffs, right? Most people would run away from that argument. But we have the truth, and the statistics, and the facts on our side, and everything the president does is backed by what’s right for the American public,” Leavitt said.
Unfortunately for Leavitt, it’s not enough to simply claim “facts;” one must actually provide them.
China, Canada, and Mexico have already retaliated against Trump’s steep tariffs, placing their own tariffs on U.S. exports. A retaliation clause Trump included in the order he signed last month promises that the U.S. will hit back at any tariffs other countries levy with, you guessed it, more tariffs.
Earlier this month, conservatives were aglow after Trump backed off imposing his tariffs on Mexico, claiming that they’d agreed to send more troops to the Southern border (which the country had already agreed to do). This appeared to prove that the threat of dangerous tariffs he’d been wielding was just that: a threat. In reality, Trump seemed to be responding to the stock market plummeting as he announced tariffs on the U.S.’s biggest trading partners.
Now, his threat has become all too real, sending the stock market sinking once again.
The post Trump Press Secretary Struggles to Explain Why His Tariffs Will Work appeared first on New Republic.
