Trump has described tariffs as “the greatest thing ever invented” and called himself “a tariff man.” Trump has said that if elected to another term he would impose tariffs on many goods and would use the power of the presidency to do so even if Congress opposed him.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has criticized these policies and labeled them a “Trump tax.”
“He intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax, call it a Trump tax, that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year,” Harris said in her August speech while accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination. “Instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.”
Economic experts have warned that raising tariffs on many imported goods—Trump has proposed 60% for Chinese goods and 10% for products from the rest of the world—would lead to a retaliatory trade war from other governments in response. That would be a repeat of a disastrous policy that Trump put in place when he was president.
Trump imposed tariffs of up to 25% on many Chinese-made goods. China retaliated and consumers ended up spending over $230 billion in tariffs for products like solar panels, steel, and aluminum, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The trade war under Trump also caused the government to pay out subsidies to farmers, who found themselves shut out of many international markets. Billions were paid to farms, with most of the aid going to corporate farms—not ones owned by families.
Trump has often championed economic policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy while failing to assist those in the middle class.
In June, 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a joint letter warning that Trump’s economic policies would be harmful.
“The outcome of this election will have economic repercussions for years, and possibly decades, to come. We believe that a second Trump term would have a negative impact on the U.S.’s economic standing in the world and a destabilizing effect on the U.S.’s domestic economy,” they wrote.
The economists contrasted Trump’s record to economic improvement under President Joe Biden and Harris, noting, “During Joe Biden’s presidency we have also seen a remarkably strong and equitable labor market recovery—enabled by his pandemic stimulus.”
At the end of Trump’s four years in office, the U.S. economy lost 2.7 million jobs despite his frequent promises during his first presidential campaign to create a booming economy. Since the government began tracking employment statistics, Trump had the worst job growth performance of any American president in history.
There has been a reversal under Biden-Harris, with more than 16 million jobs created over the last four years.
Campaign Action
