Fmr Pres Trump had an interview with Bloomberg TV yesterday.
... Donald Trump sat down with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait to outline his vision for using tariffs as a stick to influence corporate behavior, his view of the role of the Federal Reserve and how immigrants are affecting local economies.
The interview, hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday, came exactly three weeks before a presidential election in which voters have persistently cited the economy as a top issue in deciding who they will support.
Here are the former president's key statements from the interview, fact-checked and contextualized.
"It's going to have a massive effect, a positive effect," Trump said about plans to impose new tariffs.
This needs context. Economists have warned that Trump's proposed tariffs would slow economic growth and push up inflation, and they have questioned the revenue projections from them.
Trump said the tariffs his administration imposed on imports brought in "hundreds of billions of dollars just from China alone." But China isn't paying. Importers are responsible for the duties, and ultimately US businesses and consumers pay through higher costs.
One academic study in 2019 concluded that consumers and US companies were paying most of the costs of Trump's tariffs, and that after factoring in the retaliation by other countries, the main victims of Trump's trade wars had been farmers and blue-collar workers in areas that supported Trump in 2016. ...
A Bloomberg Economics analysis earlier this year found that Trump's vow to impose 60% tariffs on imports from China and 10% duties on those from the rest of the world would likely send inflation above the Federal Reserve's target and pressure the central bank to raise interest rates. ...
Fmr Pres Trump doesn't seem to know how tariffs work. Yet he called "tariffs" the ~world's most beautiful word.~
Trump comes to Chicago to insist tariff is world's most beautiful word' " and Jan. 6 was love and peace'
www.nprillinois.org
