‘Turning All Your Allies Against You’: Trump Grilled On What His Tariffs Would Do to the Western World

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday was pressed by Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait for his support of tariffs in his proposed economic policy.

Throughout his campaigns, Trump has repeatedly stated that should he win the presidency in November, his solution to decrease the national debt will be by imposing larger tariffs. That plan has been challenged by many; a recent report from The Wall Street Journal revealed that nearly 70% of surveyed economists believe another Trump term would be more inflationary than a Kamala Harris one.

During a forum in Chicago, Trump was given the chance to explain how it would be beneficial to impose such tariffs on his allies. In the middle of one of Trump’s patented “weaves” about his presidency being free of wars, Micklethwait brought the conversation back to the economy.

MICKLETHWAIT: President Trump, with great respect, I was asking about tariffs. You’ve gone off about that. Seeing you brought up tariffs and foreign policy — many people would say the biggest problem with your tariffs is actually geopolitics. You, in your first term, you got some credit for effectively saying that there was a Cold War against China. That’s what America was in.

You look at the last Cold War against the Soviet Union, America won it in part because it rallied allies to it. You’re talking about slamming allies with 30%, 20% tariffs. Isn’t this time, you’re going to end up trying to rally the West and you’re dividing it instead?

Isn’t that the real problem with tariffs, even beyond all the problems to the economy where you keep on bringing up these individual examples, but the overall effect is going to be dramatic? Answer first about foreign policy. How does it help you take on China turning all your allies against you?

TRUMP: Tremendously, because China thinks we’re a stupid country, a very stupid country. They can’t believe that somebody finally get wise to them. Not one president — Bush , Obama, Barack Hussein Obama . Have you heard of him?

Not one president charged China anything. They said, “Oh, they are a third-world nation. They are developing.” Well, we’re a developing nation, too. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at our cities. We’re a developing nation. We have to develop more than they do. We’re way behind them. You take a look at what’s happened to our cities. So, what I’m saying is this —

MICKLETHWAIT: My question was about your allies, not about China. You are going to annoy the people you need to rally behind you.

TRUMP: But our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our enemies. Our allies are the European Union. We have a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union. Our allies are Japan. You know, Abe was a very good friend of mine. He was a great guy.

Trump then went into detail about his negotiations with Abe.

Watch above via CNN.