'No Way To Treat A Friend': Tim Kaine Slams Trump Tariffs On Global Allies As Markets Drop

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In Senate floor remarks on Friday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) slammed President Trump and his tariffs.

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Transcript

00:00The Senator from Virginia. Mr. President, thank you so much. I rise to join my

00:05colleagues. I really appreciate my colleague from Hawaii's leadership on

00:11this topic and Senator from New Hampshire to talk about the pending

00:17discussion about the budget reconciliation bill and the Votorama

00:20that will start in a few hours. I want to begin by thanking my colleagues for

00:27joining me to pass Senate Joint Resolution 37 two days ago. The

00:32resolution that I had to challenge President Trump's Canadian tariffs of a

00:37horrible idea and we were able to get 51 votes in this chamber. It was a

00:43privileged motion. Majority was sufficient to pass it to turn off the

00:49Canadian tariffs because they hurt consumers, they hurt businesses, they hurt

00:54farmers, and they also hurt our national security by raising the price of

00:58aluminum and steel. 35% of the aluminum and steel that go into U.S. ships and

01:03subs comes from Canada. The other 65% from the United States. It was an important

01:08bill to pass because we don't need to put an additional sales

01:15tax on goods purchased by Americans that come from Canada. We don't need to inspire

01:21a Canadian retaliation against American products and finally we need to send the

01:26message we understand that Canada is not an adversary but Canada is a friend. That

01:32bill passed the Senate on to the House. We're already working on the House side

01:35to see if we can get it passed there. But today what I want to do is address not

01:41the Canadian tariffs that were announced now months ago but the new quote

01:46reciprocal tariffs that President Trump announced on Wednesday in the South Lawn

01:52at the very moment that we were voting to overturn the Canadian tariffs.

01:56President Trump deemed these tariffs as quote reciprocal tariffs but I got

02:02another phrase for him. They are economic idiocy and I want to talk about why they

02:09are so bad, why the policy is bad, and when the policy is so bad and seemingly

02:15inexplicable something else is going on and I want to conclude by focusing on

02:19what that something else is. Mr. President I went to the University of

02:25Missouri and I majored in economics and I had some amazing professors and I just

02:30want to give them a shout out. John Kuhlman, Whitney Hicks, Walter Johnson, Ron

02:35Roddy. I had some amazing professors at Mizzou. I graduated with an honors degree

02:40in economics in 1979 and if they were standing here with me they would say

02:46Tim Kaine you are my student. I hope you remember what we talked about in these

02:52economic classes and they would point out what I'm about to point out. Why

02:57these tariffs announced broadly against virtually every nation in the world at

03:03the say-so of one person, a national sales tax falling on American consumers

03:09at the say-so of one person, why they are in fact economic idiocy. They will

03:14hurt our families, they will hurt our businesses, they will hurt our farmers

03:19and all the economic signs suggest that President Trump is flipping the world's

03:25strongest economy toward recession. When we were kids we all learned the fairy

03:34tale, I think it's a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, of Rumpelstiltskin. The mysterious

03:39figure that turned straw into gold. What we are now seeing is Rumpelstiltskin

03:46turning gold into straw. President Trump started with the strongest economy in

03:51the world the day he was inaugurated. A strong stock market, strong consumer

03:58confidence, strong growth rates and growth projections, manufacturing up,

04:04infrastructure up, America building again. And in two months his chaotic

04:11economic idiocy has turned it around where the American economy, just go turn

04:16on the TV right now and look what's happening in the markets, the American

04:20economy has nothing but red lights and question marks all over it because of

04:24the economic idiocy. Economic idiocy is a strong charge for me. I'm not

04:34one to do a lot of name-calling but that's exactly what this is. And let me

04:37focus on some examples from President Trump's Wednesday announcement that show

04:43how idiotic these tariffs are. Japan and South Korea, two great allies of the

04:52United States, we have been working very carefully to deepen the relationship

04:58they have with each other and with us to check against the nation that we all in

05:04this chamber and President Trump also views as our chief adversary China.

05:09President Trump on his Wednesday announcement imposes a 24% tariff on

05:16goods coming from South Korea and a 25% tariff on goods coming from Japan. This

05:23is no way to treat a friend and guess what these friends are doing. They met

05:29with China to talk about a free trade agreement. They met with China to talk

05:34about how they need to band together to protect themselves from the economic

05:41policy of the United States. Japan and South Korea are two of the best allies

05:48we have in Asia or anywhere in the world and the relationships we have had with

05:55both nations have been very strong whether it's military to military

05:58cooperation, trade, diplomacy, work together on humanitarian issues, on

06:04educational exchanges. Donald Trump's tariffs are chasing Japan and South

06:10Korea into China's arms. Idiocy. Here's one Mr. President. Israel is an ally and

06:20Iran is an adversary. I think we could get a hundred and nothing vote on that

06:27proposition in this chamber. Israel is an ally, Iran is an adversary. Guess what

06:35President Trump did with his tariffs on Wednesday. A 17% tariff on Israel and

06:41Iran 10% tariff. 17% tariff on our ally Israel and Iran 10% tariff. What kind of

06:53friend is that? How is that as a way to treat an ally? We are rock-solid in

07:05sending military support to Israel. I helped whip votes almost exactly a year

07:10ago in the Senate floor to get a 14 billion dollar defense aid package for

07:15Israel but we're gonna put a higher tariff on Israel than on Iran? It makes

07:20no sense. It's idiocy. Here's another one. Trump says these are reciprocal tariffs.

07:29We are putting tariffs on nations who are treating us unfairly in trade but

07:36he's imposing tariffs even on nations that put no tariffs on US products, that

07:41have no trade barriers on US products. Singapore has no trade barriers on US

07:47products but Trump is socking them with tariffs anyway. Israel has no trade

07:52barriers on US products but Trump is socking them with tariffs anyway.

07:57Idiocy. Idiocy. Here's another one. Trump in his rambling monologue on the South

08:08Lawn on Wednesday where he defined groceries as a bag with stuff in it. I

08:13was very happy to be enlightened about what groceries are. He said that he was

08:20imposing tariffs on nations where the US has trade deficits. So the idea is we're

08:25gonna put tariffs on them because you're not buying enough of our stuff. We want

08:30to penalize nations with trade where the US has a trade deficit. But guess what? We

08:38have trade surpluses with Brazil, Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands,

08:44Singapore and the UK. So what did Donald Trump do? He put tariffs on them anyway.

08:51He said it was about trade deficits and he's putting tariffs even on nations

08:56that are buying more of our products than we're buying of theirs. Idiocy.

09:02Idiocy. In Donald Trump's first term he encouraged American businesses to move

09:09their supply chains out of China and a lot of businesses did. Many American

09:16businesses followed Donald Trump's instructions and moved their supply

09:20chains from China to Vietnam. And in President Trump's first term he boasted

09:26about that. He patted himself on the back. I told these American companies pull

09:30your supply chain out of China and when they went to Vietnam he patted himself

09:35on the back about that. So what's he doing now? 46% tariff on imports from

09:42Vietnam. Well that's that's quite a way to treat American companies that move

09:47their supply chains out of China at your request just a few years ago. Some move

09:57their supply chains to nations like Cambodia or other nearby nations. Trump

10:02socked them all. He socked them all with tariffs even for these businesses who

10:08did move their supply chains at his request. And then we get to something

10:12that has been more widely known. Trump putting tariffs on tiny nearly

10:20uninhabited islands. Reunion. The Heard and McDonald Islands. Norfolk Island.

10:31There is a tiny French island off the coast of Canada that I will admit I was

10:39not even aware of. St. Pierre and Miquelon. 50% tariff on these places. I

10:47mean I will say one thing about Donald Trump's tariffs that's good and it's the

10:50only thing that's good. It's made a lot of people pull out their globe and and

10:54and look at nations that they didn't even know existed. St. Pierre and

10:58Miquelon will now have a 50% tariff. Heard and McDonald Islands a 10% tariff.

11:04Svalbard and Jan Mayen which are actually not even a country it's part of

11:08Norway a 10% tariff. Norfolk Island a 29% tariff. Reunion 37% tariff. Donald

11:17Trump at least has has inspired interest in geography a subject that often kids

11:23find boring. Okay so I've gone through these examples of pure idiocy. The

11:31tariffs are not designed to punish adversaries since we are hurting allies

11:36and treating them worse than adversaries in many ways. The tariffs are not designed

11:40to lower trade barriers since nations with no trade barriers are still getting

11:45socked. The tariffs are not designed to counter trade deficits since nations

11:51where we have trade surpluses are getting socked. So why do them at all? Why

11:58punish Americans with a national sales tax which all the economists say is the

12:05largest peacetime tax ever imposed in US history? If it's not to reduce trade

12:11barriers, if it's not to punish nations with trade deficits, if it's not designed

12:16to punish nations that are adversaries, why would we impose a sales tax on the

12:24American consumer, the American family, American businesses, American national

12:29security? That's what we're going to be talking about tonight during the

12:34Voterama. That's what you will see Democrats emphasizing with amendments

12:39that we are offering. These tariffs are not about trade deficits, trade barriers.

12:44They're not about the behavior of adversaries. It's about raising money to

12:49fund a tax cut for the rich. That's what they're about. Peter Navarro, the

12:55president's chief economic advisor says, and I think this is probably optimistic

12:59but these guys like to puff up the numbers, he says that these tariffs will

13:04raise six trillion dollars over the course of the next ten years, about 600

13:09billion dollars, all taken out of the pockets of everyday Americans who are

13:15paying more for groceries, who are paying more for building supplies when they do

13:20a home renovation, farmers who are paying more from fertilizer because the key

13:25component potash, 80% of it comes from Canada. The six trillion dollars that

13:31these tariffs will raise all come out of the pocketbooks of Americans who are

13:36working hard and who don't want to pay more taxes, but they're going to fork

13:41over six trillion dollars because of these tariffs. And then President Trump

13:45and my colleagues here are setting up a budget where they'll take that six

13:49trillion and they'll add to it all of these slash-and-burn cuts that

13:54chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk are finding by laying off 80,000 people at the VA

14:00or indiscriminately firing veterans in every agency in the federal government.

14:07They'll combine the tariff revenue with the savings from Medicaid cuts or cuts

14:12to school nutrition or cuts to the Pell Grant program and then they will take

14:17all of that revenue and hand it over to the richest people in this country, many

14:22of whom are the richest people on the planet Earth, in tax cuts for the

14:26wealthiest. How do we know? How do we know to predict that? We know because

14:31that's what they did when Donald Trump was president in 2017. In 2017, the tax

14:38bill that passed by a simple majority vote in this body was a big giveaway to

14:45the rich and that's what Trump and my Republican colleagues are preparing to

14:50do yet again. The only difference between 2017 and now is this. In 2017, when the

14:59Republicans and Donald Trump gave a tax cut to the rich, they didn't pay for it.

15:03It was all on the deficit. They just put it on the credit card for our kids and

15:06grandkids to pay. This time, they've decided they don't want to continue to

15:12jack up the deficit, although they're likely to anyway, and so they think they

15:15need to pay for the tax cut. How are they going to pay for it? By cutting

15:20programs that everyday Americans rely on and by socking families and

15:25businesses with a six trillion dollar tariff tax increase imposed purely to

15:35fund a tax cut for Donald Trump and his friends. That's what we're going to fight

15:39against in this budget and in the same way that we succeeded by getting

15:43Republicans to vote with us against the Canadian tariffs a few days ago, it is my

15:48hope that when we get to the end of this process, we will have some

15:52Republican colleagues in this House and the next who will stand up against a

15:57president who thinks one man can shatter the economy and impose costs on everyday

16:04people to benefit himself and his friends. And with that, Madam President, I

16:08yield the floor.

'No Way To Treat A Friend': Tim Kaine Slams Trump Tariffs On Global Allies As Markets Drop

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