President Donald Trump delivered remarks in Miami, Florida on Monday, where he spoke to Republican lawmakers and floated a sensational idea that most of the country will likely embrace: relieve the federal tax burden by relying on tariffing foreign countries to boost the wealth of American citizens.
“America’s going to be very rich again, and it’s going to happen very quickly,” he said. “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before.”
The president said that between 1870 to 1913, America was richer than ever because of the country’s heavy reliance on the tariff system, which preceded the concept of federal income tax. The president said this was “the richest period in the history of the United States, relatively speaking.”
“We had no income tax – the income tax came in in 1913,” Trump pointed out.
He proposed an alternative to taxation, which many American would agree has become an increasingly crushing financial burden. “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich OUR citizens,” he declared.
Such a proposal is unprecedented, and it would certainly be a historic accomplishment for the president’s second term if he could successfully reposition America to utilize a tariff system over taxation once again.
He joked during his speech that the word “tariff” was one of the most beautiful words in the English language. “It’s God, love, religion…TARIFF,” he joked, putting them in order of importance.
Under President Trump, America is rapidly changing, and the concept of utilizing a tariff system is just one of many ways the president’s administration is posturing to make the country great again.
“The American decline is over – the Golden Age has officially begun,” President Trump said on Monday.