US President Donald Trump on Friday (Jan 31) acknowledged that tariff costs are sometimes passed along to consumers, and said his plans to impose tariffs may cause a short-term disruption.
But Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he was not concerned about the reaction of financial markets to his plans to impose tariffs on Chinese, Mexican and Canadian goods starting from Feb 1.
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But Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he was not concerned about the reaction of financial markets to his plans to impose tariffs on Chinese, Mexican and Canadian goods starting from Feb 1.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Good afternoon, everybody.
00:02Okay.
00:04How are you?
00:05Hi.
00:06Has the president made up his mind about a timeline for tariffs on the EU?
00:13No, he has not.
00:15Will it be a one-size-fit-all or will it be differentiated among the governments?
00:21I will get ahead of the president on tariffs when it comes to the European Union.
00:25Reuters are reporting that the president has made a decision on the Canada and Mexico
00:30tariffs, but that they won't actually be implemented until March 1st.
00:33I was wondering if you could confirm that and talk through some of the president's
00:36thinking there.
00:37I saw that report, and it is false.
00:39I was just with the president in the Oval Office, and I can confirm that tomorrow, the
00:44February 1st deadline that President Trump put into place at a statement several weeks
00:48ago continues.
00:50The president will be implementing tomorrow a 25% tariffs on Mexico, 25% tariffs on Canada,
00:57and a 10% tariff on China for the illegal fentanyl that they have sourced and allowed
01:03to distribute into our country, which has killed tens of millions of Americans.
01:08These are promises made and promises kept by the president.
01:11The president yesterday said that last night he was planning to discuss whether an exemption
01:16would be made on oil imports.
01:18Do you have any information on what decision he made there, or will there be exemptions
01:21at all offered under this?
01:23I don't have an update or readout for you on the exemptions, but those tariffs will
01:27be for public consumption in about 24 hours tomorrow, so you can read them then.
01:32The Canadian prime minister said today that if the U.S. imposes tariffs, he will respond
01:37and he will not relent until the tariffs are removed.
01:40Are we seeing the start of a trade war with Canada?
01:42I don't think so.
01:43I think the president is going to implement those tariffs tomorrow, and he will respond
01:47to Mr. Trudeau's comments in due time, I am sure.
01:50What does the administration need to see in order to avoid those tariffs?
01:53The tariffs are incoming tomorrow on Canada, and the reason for that is because both Canada
01:59and Mexico have allowed an unprecedented invasion of illegal fentanyl that is killing American
02:05citizens and also illegal immigrants into our country.
02:09The amount of fentanyl that has been seized at the southern border in the last two years
02:12alone has the potential to kill tens of millions of Americans.
02:17And so the president is intent on doing this, and I think Justin Trudeau would be wise to
02:21talk to President Trump directly before pushing outlandish comments like that to the media.
02:25We promised Americans to try to reduce costs, and so many of the products that would be
02:30tariffed, when they come into the country, the outgoing country is not paying the tariff,
02:35the buyers in the United States pay that, and then that's passed on to consumers in
02:41most instances.
02:42Sometimes.
02:43How would you expect to have prices come down if you have such a broad plan for tariffs,
02:49and what do you say to the voters who want to see you reduce everyday costs?
02:53Well, let me just tell you that I got elected for a lot of reasons.
02:56Number one was the border.
02:57Number two was inflation, because I had almost no inflation, and yet I charged hundreds of
03:02billions of dollars of tariffs to countries.
03:06And think of it, I had almost no inflation and took in $600 billion of money from other
03:15countries, and tariffs don't cause inflation, they cause success, cause big success.
03:22So we're going to have great success.
03:24There could be some temporary short-term disruption, and people will understand that.
03:28And I had that when I negotiated some of the good deals for the farmers, and unfortunately
03:32those deals have been led astray by Biden and his people because they didn't enforce
03:38the deal.
03:39But the tariffs are going to make us very rich and very strong, and we're going to
03:44treat other countries very fairly.
03:47But if you think about it, other countries charge us tariffs, we don't charge them tariffs,
03:53and it's about time that that changes.
03:55Are you concerned about the market reaction around tariffs?
03:58No.
03:59No, tariffs, the word tariff is a very misunderstood word.
04:03You've heard me say, I say it kiddingly, but it's one of the most beautiful words in the
04:10dictionary.
04:11It really is.