Interviewer Tries To Explain Tariffs To Trump (He Fails)

The Hill reports:

Bloomberg’s top editor, John Micklethwait, repeatedly pressed Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago over his plans to impose a universal tariff on imports and his threats to use tariffs on American companies that outsource their manufacturing.

Micklethwait noted Trump’s plans would essentially halt trade with China, place at least a 10 percent tariff on European nations and have a drastic effect on the U.S. economy, where 40 million jobs rely on trade. “That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy,” Micklethwait said.

“It’s going to have a massive effect — positive effect. It’s going to be a positive effect,” Trump responded. “It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.”

Mediaite reports:

“You look at what you’re going to do in terms of protectionism, drive countries to use the other currencies, and all that debt is also going to lessen the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Do you worry about that?” asked Micklethwait.

“What is [sic] The Wall Street Journal know? I’m meeting with them tomorrow. What is The Wall Street Journal that they’ve been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way,” Trump shot back.“You’ve been wrong,” Trump added as the crowd roared.

“You’re wrong. You’ve been wrong. You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff. You know, let me tell you about currency. You kind of you know, you go and jump in a lot of a lot of different subjects,” Trump added.

In between the two exchanges cited above were minutes of classically Trump ramblings about the Green New Deal, AOC, Biden’s mental state, and on and on.