Why We Must Hang with Trump on Tariffs

RUSH: It’s amazing. The Drive-By Media now understands the concept of tax cuts and tax increases, but it took tariffs and a tariff war with the ChiComs for the Drive-Bys to understand it. Now, all of a sudden, the Drive-Bys can’t wait to tell you the truth about this. Two hours or so ago, the ChiComs announced that they’re going to increase tariffs on about $60 billion worth of U.S. goods.

That news is the latest excuse to drive the stock market down through the floor. Never mind it’s gonna have a minimal effect on the economy, given that $60 billion is such a small number. The ChiComs are also threatening to start cashing in some of their Treasuries and cashing out, but they will never do that. Well, I don’t want to say “never,” but that’s just a threat.

Trump has been talking about the unfairness of Chinese trade since the 1990s, by the way, so he’s totally consistent on this. But the ChiComs have decided to increase tariffs on about $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. It’s a small number when compared to the totality of the United States GDP. The reason the number is so low is because the ChiComs import so few U.S. goods.

I mean, they’re putting tariffs on goods they import, but they import so few and so little that it really is an insignificant number. It is more a statement, a political statement. It’s the ChiComs standing up and saying, “Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? You’re gonna try to change this arrangement so that it’s not unfair to you? Fine. Well, we’ll hit you back.” It’s a game of will right now that’s going on. We, on the other hand — and this will express the difference. We import close to $400 billion worth of ChiCom products. They import an infinitesimally small percentage of that.

It has been an unfair arrangement for decades.

China had a 10% tariff on all U.S. goods while our tariff on Chinese goods was 4%. It was like that for decades. There was no outrage from the Drive-By Media. There was no outrage from the Washington establishment because they’re the ones that put the deal together. Donald Trump is the one who noticed it. Trump did not start this again. Even after Trump increased the tariff on Chinese goods to 10%, our tariffs were still lower than what the ChiComs had on our goods.

It’s not like Trump has started a trade war. As we’ve said for months now, folks, Trump is just finally addressing the trade war China has been waging on us for decades. What else would you call it? They import very little of what we produce, and what they do import, they slap massive tariffs on. Meanwhile, we import gobs of stuff from them. We don’t have hardly any tariffs (until now) on any of that that, and it led to a $500 billion annual trade deficit with the ChiComs.

This is what Trump means when he says, “Our stupid leaders were giving them $500 billion a year.” This is where the figure comes from, and we set that up as part of the world order, and it was the same way we’ve dealt with member nations in NATO and in other international economic and trade agreements. We agreed to take it on the chin.

More From Rush Limbaugh (subscription required):