Photo: Alamy
It’s no secret that the American economy has seen better days. Under the leadership of Joe Biden, inflation has spiked chaotically, GDP growth has sunk, and prices are higher than ever.
Even a new mainstream poll from CNN revealed that 70 percent of Americans agree that the economy is in “poor” condition, while 66 percent actively disapprove of “Bidenomics,” Joe Biden’s flailing approach to handling the country’s capitalistic woes.
Amid this bleak environment, President Trump is seeking to reclaim the White House, offering a vision for what could be upon a potential 2025 administration that would focus on growing domestic business, squashing Chinese trade abuse, and firing up American industry.
In 2017, shortly after taking office, Trump proclaimed proudly in a speech at a Boeing factory in South Carolina, “We are going to FIGHT for every last American job.” In 2024, his approach to creating domestic American commerce has remained largely unchanged.
In a new interview with TIME magazine, the 45th president talked extensively about his thoughts on the U.S. economy, sharing insight into his plan to tariff Chinese imports upward of 60 percent. He explained, “It may be more than that. It may be a derivative of that… But it will be somebody—look, when they come in and they steal our jobs, and they steal our wealth, they steal our country.”
He confirmed that he would enact a tariff on all imports of at least ten percent, as well as a reciprocal tax, stating that he believes that will help bring prices down rather than heighten them.
When asked if he believed the cost of such tariffs would be “passed” to American businesses, Trump did not agree. He stated, “No, I think what happens is you build. What happens to get out of the whole situation is you end up building, instead of having your product brought in from China, because of that additional cost, you end up making the product in the United States.”
He also posited strong thoughts about building factories in the United States rather than outsourcing them to places like India or China: “And that’s not going to happen when I’m President, because I will tariff them at 100%. Because I’m not going to allow them to steal the rest of our business.”
Finally, he explained that he’s not opposed to manufacturing electric cars in America – rather, to Trump, it was about what the consumer wanted, and stopping foreign countries from encroaching on American auto manufacturing.
He concluded, “We have a very small percentage of that business left and then you have a poor fool like the gentleman [who] is at the United Auto Workers who is okay with the fact that we’re going to do all electric cars and it’s so sad to see because the all electric cars are just not what the consumer wants.”
