Bernie Sanders Claims Trump’s Tariffs Will ‘Hurt’ Working People And Fail To Protect American Jobs

3 days ago

During a CNN town hall on Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) slammed President Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on foreign adversaries.

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Transcript

00:00Senator Sanders, you have consistently opposed trade agreements like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, citing their detrimental effects on American workers.

00:08Recently, President Trump imposed broad reciprocal tariffs on numerous countries, leading to significant market disruptions and international backlash.

00:16How do you assess the effectiveness of such tariff strategies in protecting American jobs?

00:20And what alternative measures would you advocate to ensure fair trade without escalating global trade tensions?

00:24Thanks a lot, Nate. And Nate is quite right. Not only did I vote against a Clinton-inspired NAFTA and PNTR with China, I helped lead the effort against it.

00:36And I think you know why. What I saw and wanted to prevent was the decimation of communities all over this country where working people had decent jobs, often with unions, in a factory.

00:49And what these trade agreements, in essence, said to corporate America, hey, no problem.

00:55You can throw American workers out on the street. You can go to Mexico. You can go to China and hire people for pennies an hour.

01:03And I thought that that was a horrible idea. It was a horrible idea.

01:06It resulted in the loss of thousands and thousands of factories in America, the loss of millions of jobs.

01:12So to answer Nate's question, look, I think is tariffs used selectively are a good idea if they're going to protect American jobs.

01:22But to arbitrarily, out of nowhere, come up with a tariff that they can't even justify or explain to virtually every country on earth is absolutely counterproductive.

01:33Those tariffs are aimed at part, and the president talks about bringing manufacturing jobs to America.

01:38The White House talked about iPhones being made here in America.

01:42Some economists have said that it would cost thousands of extra dollars to buy an iPhone.

01:47Is that realistic?

01:48I think probably I don't know the answer to that.

01:50But what I do know is the immediate harm is going to be very significant.

01:55And it is going to I was just in Target the other day buying something.

02:00And I looked around there, virtually all of those products sold in stores like Target are going to see significant increases in prices if Trump gets his way with tariffs.

02:09That's going to hurt working people a whole lot.

Bernie Sanders Claims Trump’s Tariffs Will ‘Hurt’ Working People And Fail To Protect American Jobs

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