2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is beginning to lay out specific elements of his platform, including a plan to impose tariffs on various imported goods.
In an announcement earlier this week, the former president said that he plans to “tax China to build up America,” using the opportunity to contrast his vision for America with that of the current president.
“Joe Biden claims to support American manufacturing, but in reality, he is pushing the same pro-China globalist agenda that ripped the industrial heart out of our country,” Trump declared.
BREAKING: Trump announces he will place a series of taxes on China and companies who do business with them that will be used to rebuild America pic.twitter.com/9iaGQxrauW
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) February 28, 2023
Stressing the “economic and national security” implications of international trade, he said that his plan would involve “a bold series of reforms to completely eliminate dependence on China in all critical areas.”
Although much of his announcement focused on trade with China, Trump expressed support for tariffs that would target any nation engaging in “trade cheating and abuse,” adding: “As tariffs on foreign producers go up, taxes on American producers will go down, and go down very substantially.”
Although he seems to favor placing taxes on imports of all types, he clarified that such tariffs will “increase incrementally depending on how much individual foreign countries devalue their currency.”
Citing the successes of his administration, he predicted that such manipulation of the trade system by other nations “was going to be stopped completely within less than a year” if he had remained in office for another term.
Specifically, Trump highlighted his administration’s replacement of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the more advantageous United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a “tremendous” step in the right direction.
He pledged to build on that success if elected to serve a second term next year.
“We’re also going to end other unfair trade deals, and we’ll end them quickly,” he added.
Calling out his successor’s “pro-China economic program” as one that “puts America last” and is “killing our country,” Trump declared: “My cutting-edge trade agenda will revitalize our economy by once again putting America first. We will quickly become a manufacturing powerhouse like the world has never seen before.”
It all adds up to “a lot of jobs” being created for Americans, Trump concluded.
