President Donald Trump took questions from the press on Wednesday outside the White House and was asked if he was nearing a deal with China to lower his massive tariffs on the country. The exchange came a day after Trump appeared to back down from his trade war with China. “145% is very high and it won’t be that high. It won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday — sparking a surge in the markets.
“Can you clarify, Mr. President, on China?” asked an off-camera reporter.
“Yeah, we are going to have a fair deal with China. It’s going to be fair,” Trump replied.
“Are you talking to them actively now?” pressed the reporter.
“Actively? Everything’s active. Everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing. They know that they can’t get away with it any longer, but they’re still going to do fine. And we’re going to be a country that you can be proud of. Not a laughing stock all over the world for many years,” Trump replied, before going on a lengthy pro-tariff riff:
You know, in 1913, they traded to the income tax system. We used to be all-tariff! And we had no income tax. And we had the wealthiest country we had proportionately from about 1870 to 1913. It was all tariffs. And we did — we had more money than anybody. They had committees how to spend the money. They had so much money, they didn’t know how to.
Then some brilliant person said, ‘Let’s go income tax, let’s let the people pay.’ We’re going to be able to substantially lower taxes when this is finished.
“So, Mr. President, how does it look in the meantime? Are you considering lowering tariffs on China while you’re negotiating?” another reporter asked.
“It looks good. We were losing anywhere from $3 to $5 billion a day. Think of it. We’re losing billions of dollars a day under Biden and other presidents, frankly. But under Biden, it got really worse. China got out of control. We’re losing a trillion dollars a year. Trillion. Not a billion, not a million. A trillion. And now we’re going to be making money with everyone, and everyone is going to be happy. But we’re no longer going to be the country that’s ripped off by every country in the world. Thank you very much,” Trump concluded.
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
