Economics

Liz Wolfe | 8.26.2024 9:31 AM

J.D. Vance thinks Donald Trump's tariffs actually worked: In a cable news segment this weekend, vice-presidential contender J.D. Vance defended his running mate's first-term tariff policies.

"How do you respond to that charge that Trump's tariffs would hurt the middle class?" Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker asked Vance in a long sit-down.

"There's this whole thing that Kamala Harris did at the convention where she made a bunch of claims about what would happen and not enough actually reflection on what already happened, right? Because Donald Trump was already president. He used tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to our country, and I think he'll do it again. And he did it while keeping prices extremely low. Because if you go back to the Trump presidency, we had 12,000 factories that were built during Donald Trump's presidency. Inflation never really ticked above two percent his entire administration," responded Vance.

Welker pushed back more, asking him roughly the same question again: "Do you acknowledge that imposing more tariffs will ultimately cost consumers?"

"What it really does is it penalizes importers from bringing goods outside the country, into the country," responded Vance. "And I think that's just a necessary thing. We know that China and a number of other countries are using, effectively, slave labor to undercut the wages of........

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