On Tuesday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller argued that using tariffs to force other countries to lower theirs and funding the government with them “work in concert.” And the U.S. “can always maintain a baseline of import collection to fund the general treasury, to fund our revenues. At the same time, where you see some of these countries that have engaged in the worst practices, that have higher rates of tariffs, where they can enter into negotiations with the United States to come down to where the rest of the world is.”
Host Rob Schmitt asked, “I want to ask you the million-dollar question here that everybody’s trying to figure out. Is the goal to use tariffs briefly to force fair deals, or is the goal to keep these long-term and fund the government with them?”
Miller answered, “Well, so, I think those points are not in the kind of contradiction that people have portrayed them to be. So, the United States — so, many countries, let’s take Europe, for example, the E.U., the E.U. … has a VAT, for example, a 20% VAT on all imports, right? Other countries, they have a 15% VAT on all imports. But most advanced economies in the world collect some kind of a — and many not advanced economies, some kind of revenue off imports. So, the United States, without preordaining what the final outcome of different negotiations will be, can always maintain a baseline of import collection to fund the general treasury, to fund our revenues. At the same time, where you see some of these countries that have engaged in the worst practices, that have higher rates of tariffs, where they can enter into negotiations with the United States to come down to where the rest of the world is. So, the answer is that, of course, you can do both of these things and both of these goals, in fact, work in concert. And it’s misinformation to suggest that it can only be revenue or it can only be fairness. It can absolutely be both. It should be both. Any sound industrial policy would always take both into account in a balanced fashion.”
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The post Miller: Using Tariffs to Lower Other Nations’ Tariffs, Fund Gov’t ‘Work in Concert’, ‘Can Always Maintain a Baseline’ appeared first on Breitbart.
