Former US V-P Mike Pence assails Trump for shifting to ‘permanent’ tariff barriers
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Former US vice-president Mike Pence said President Donald Trump’s shift on tariffs "ultimately will harm the American economy, will harm American consumers".
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – Former US vice-president Mike Pence criticised US President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda, saying it was a starkly different approach to trade from his first term that would harm American consumers and businesses.
Mr Pence told Bloomberg Television on July 10 that the tariffs enacted during Mr Trump’s first presidency, when Mr Pence served as the No. 2, were geared towards forcing nations to the negotiating table to lower barriers to trade.
Mr Pence said Mr Trump was abandoning that approach for permanent import taxes.
“We used tariffs and the threat of tariffs, principally focused on China, to leverage changes in behaviour, but the objective was to essentially lower trade barriers and expand trade,” Mr Pence said.
“I actually believe that President Trump is driving towards a long-term change in industrial policy in America, where he sees permanent unilateral trade tariff barriers as beneficial to America in the long term,” Mr Pence continued, adding that “as a free market conservative, that’s something I just don’t embrace”.
Mr Pence said he backed taking a tough approach on China to force the world’s second-largest economy to lower barriers to US goods, and he cited his efforts negotiating agreements with other major US trading partners, including Japan.
Mr Trump earlier this week said he was imposing a 25 per cent tariff rate on goods imported from Japan
“What I like to say is free trade with free nations. Be tough on China, be tough on trade abusers, but have the objective of ultimately lowering trade barriers, and that’s how America wins and prospers. That’s how we won during our first term,” Mr Pence said.
The former vice-president said Mr Trump’s shift on tariffs “ultimately will harm the American economy, will harm American consumers”.
Mr Pence was a staunch ally of the President, helping him win the support of evangelical voters in 2016.
But Mr Pence fell out with his one-time boss over the insurrection at the US Capitol
Protesters in the mob of Trump supporters who marched on the Capitol that day chanted “Hang Mike Pence”.
Mr Pence sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 but left the race early after his campaign failed to gain traction.
“I want to give President Trump all the credit in the world for a historic political comeback,” he said on July 10. BLOOMBERG
