‘I Can’t Guarantee’: Trump Admits Americans May Pay More When NBC’s Kristen Welker Confronts Him On Prices
President-elect Donald Trump admitted that Americans may pay more when NBC News anchor Kristen Welker confronted him over the effects of his tariff plan on prices.
Trump sat for an exclusive interview that aired on Sunday morning’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, during which Welker asked Trump if he could “guarantee” Americans wouldn’t pay more because of his policies. Trump could not, and when he defended the policy, Welker fact-checked him:
KRISTEN WELKER: All right, we’re going to delve into your Cabinet just a little bit later. But I want to delve into one of your signature promises on the campaign trail, which was to end inflation, to lower prices. You are now proposing tariffs against the United States’ three biggest trading partners. Economists of all stripes say that ultimately consumers pay the price of tariffs.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t believe that.
KRISTEN WELKER: Can you guarantee American families won’t pay more?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I can’t guarantee anything. I can’t guarantee tomorrow. But I can say that if you looked at my – just pre-Covid, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. And I had a lot of tariffs on a lot of different countries, but in particular China. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars and we had no inflation. In fact, when I handed it over, they didn’t have inflation for a year and a half. They went almost two years just based on what I had created. And then they created inflation with energy and with spending too much. So I think we will – I’m a big believer in tariffs. I think tariffs are the most beautiful word. I think they’re beautiful. It’s going to make us rich. We’re subsidizing Canada to the tune over $100 billion a year. We’re subsidizing Mexico for almost $300 billion. We shouldn’t be – why are we subsidizing these countries? If we’re going to subsidize them, let them become a state. We’re subsidizing Mexico and we’re subsidizing Canada and we’re subsidizing many countries all over the world. And all I want to do is I want to have a level, fast, but fair playing field.
KRISTEN WELKER: Sir, your previous tariffs during your first administration cost Americans some $80 billion, and now you have major companies from Walmart, Black & Decker, AutoZone, saying that any tariffs are going to force them to drive up prices for their consumers. How do you make sure that these CEOs, that these companies don’t, in fact, pass on the cost of tariffs to their consumers?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: They cost Americans nothing. They made a great economy for us. They also solve another problem. If we were going to have problems having to do with wars and having to do with other things, tariffs – I have stopped wars with tariffs by saying, “You guys want to fight, it’s great. But both of you are going to pay tariffs to the United States at 100%.” And they have many purposes, tariffs, if properly used. I don’t say you use them like a madman. I say properly used. But it didn’t cost this country anything. It made this country money. And we never really got the chance to go all out because we had to fight Covid in the last part, and we did it very successfully. And when I handed it over to Biden, the stock market was higher than what it was just previous to Covid coming in. It was actually higher. Tariffs are a – properly used, are a very powerful tool, not only economically, but also for getting other things outside of economics.
Watch above via NBC’s Meet the Press.
