Fox News anchor Chris Wallace continued to do his job as a fact-checker on Sunday during an interview with White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow by calling out President Donald Trump’s false claim that China is paying his tariffs.
Trump has been engaged in a trade war with China for over a year and negotiations continue to fail. Trump is now more desperate than ever as farmers and American businesses suffer the consequences.
But that hasn’t stopped Trump from bragging about the tariffs on Twitter.
Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner – there is absolutely no need to rush – as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
….The process has begun to place additional Tariffs at 25% on the remaining 325 Billion Dollars. The U.S. only sells China approximately 100 Billion Dollars of goods & products, a very big imbalance. With the over 100 Billion Dollars in Tariffs that we take in, we will buy…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
….agricultural products from our Great Farmers, in larger amounts than China ever did, and ship it to poor & starving countries in the form of humanitarian assistance. In the meantime we will continue to negotiate with China in the hopes that they do not again try to redo deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
Except that Trump is lying about who pays the tariffs. China is not paying this tariff. American businesses and consumers are paying it, something Wallace pointed out to Kudlow.
“It’s not China that pays tariffs, it’s the American importers, the American companies that pay what is in effect a tax increase,” Wallace explained. “And oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers.
“Fair enough,” Kudlow conceded before claiming “both sides will pay.”
“If it’s a tariff on goods coming in, the Chinese aren’t paying,” Wallace repeated.
“But the Chinese will suffer GDP losses and so forth,” Kudlow said.
Wallace, however, refused to excuse Trump’s lies.
“I understand that but the president says China pays the tariffs,” he said. “They may suffer consequences but it’s U.S. businesses and U.S. consumers who pay.”
Here’s the video via Twitter.
Chris talks to @larry_kudlow about who actually pays the tariffs with China if they were to be imposed #FNS pic.twitter.com/cwl89OyLDK
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) May 12, 2019
The fact is that Americans are paying the price of these tariffs, not China. And they are not only having a negative effect on the stock market, but they could also cause 400,000 Americans to lose their jobs.
That’s a price that is just too high to pay for Trump’s incompetence.
Featured Image: Screenshot
