Donald Trump on Tuesday denounced India, China and Brazil as “making too many tariffs” and said his government would not allow the three to continue down this path, declaring, “… we are not going to let that happen anymore because we are going to put America first.”
Speaking to House Republicans at his Florida retreat, the President of the United States acknowledged that the three countries – founding members of the increasingly influential BRICS bloc – were acting in their own best interests but also seemed to insist that “… their intent is to harm us”.
“We’re going to put tariffs on foreign countries and people who really want to hurt us. Well… they want to hurt us, but they basically want to make their country do well. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India, Brazil and many other countries. (But) we’re not going to let that happen anymore… because we’re going to put America first,” Trump declared amid cheers.
The remarks came soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet Trump in Washington early next month. The two leaders spoke on the phone on Monday night; it is not clear if tariffs were on the agenda but New Delhi’s view on ‘illegal immigrants’ was.
However, the US President’s view on India and tariffs is seen by many as problematic, as he had described Delhi – America’s biggest trading partner – as a “huge abuser” during his campaign.
Trump also spoke of a “very fair system” to make the US “more prosperous and more powerful” “very quickly,” reiterating what he said after being sworn in last week; “Instead of taxing our citizens to make other countries rich… we will tax foreign countries to make our citizens rich,” he said.
And if foreign companies – Indian, Chinese, Brazilian or otherwise – want to avoid these high tariffs, Trump said, they “have to build their plants right here in the US.”
He also hit out at House Republicans over plans to levy tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper and other materials needed by the US military. “We have to bring back production… There was a time when we built a ship a day. Now we can’t… we don’t know what we’re doing.”
High tariffs on goods imported into the US – particularly from China – have been a frequent issue during Trump’s campaign. He also threatened to impose “100 per cent tariffs” on BRICS countries to (in his mind) put an end to any discussion of member countries not using the dollar as a common currency.
Trump’s tariff tirade has a clear economic agenda, though the method may be questionable, and that is to boost manufacturing in the US. By hiking the prices of key commodities like steel, semi-conductors, medicines etc, he is hoping to do just that. “Under the ‘America First’ economic model, as tariffs on other countries rise, taxes on American workers and businesses will come down and a large number of jobs and factories will come back home.”
The other approach is what he calls ‘tariffs as a weapon’, an approach underlined by Trump’s confrontation with Colombia over deportations. The South American country initially refused to accept a plane full of ‘illegal immigrants’, after which it faced a hefty 25 per cent tariff and a trade war.
White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt claimed a ‘victory’, saying: “Today’s events have made clear to the world that America is respected again”.
