Donald Trump Again Insists China Pays His Tariffs
"I think our tariffs are very good for us," he said hours after the Federal Reserve chairman warned that "trade policy uncertainty" is rattling the U.S. economy.
Mary Papenfuss
Trends Reporter, HuffPost
08/24/2019 03:15am EDT | Updated August 26, 2019
President Donald Trump falsely claimed Friday — yet again — that China pays for the tariffs he has imposed on Chinese imports.
"I think our tariffs are very good for us," he told reporters on the way to Air Force One before flying to the G-7 Summit in France. "We're taking in tens of billions of dollars. China is paying for it."
"I think our tariffs are working out very well for us," he added. "People don't understand that yet."
Trump is still lying about tariffs.
"People don't understand that yet," he says about his false claim that China is paying for them. (Tariffs are actually taxes on American importers generally passed on to consumers.) pic.twitter.com/5gk1q257WH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 24, 2019
In fact, U.S. companies importing Chinese goods pay the tariffs, and typically pass some, if not all, of the costs onto American consumers. Economists have estimated that the trade war is costing U.S. companies and consumers more than $3 billion a month.
As for the tariffs being good for the U.S., Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned Friday the escalating trade war brings risks.
"Trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown and in weak manufacturing and capital spending in the United States," Powell said at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Former Federal Reserve Vice President Stanley Fischer said at a later event that the greatest threat to the international monetary system was Trump.
The president is "trying to destroy the global trading system," Fischer said, The Wall Street Journal reported. "We are in a system in which things are getting worse day by day. It's not a service to anybody ... to not focus on what the key problems are. And that would be the behavior of the United States, unfortunately."
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