Donald Trump took aim at his conservative critics while defending his trade policies in West Virginia Thursday.
“I’m a conservative, but the conservatives hate me for suggesting I would dare tax somebody,” Trump said after vowing that companies moving jobs overseas would face stiff tariffs when they try to ship their products back to the United States.
Speaking to a crowd of coalminers — he at one point donned a hard hat given to him by a miners’ union and imitating a shoveling motion — he focused heavily on jobs.
Trump hit unfair trade deals, environmental regulations and anti-Trump activists within the Republican Party.
“Our jobs are going to everyone else but us,” he said. “We’re sending our jobs to Mexico, China is taking our jobs, Japan.”
“We’re gonna open the mines,” Trump added, before pointing to a sign in the audience saying “Trump digs coal.”
The Republican front-runner has come under fire from conservative champions of free trade for promising to slap 35 percent tariffs on some foreign-made goods.
Trump says this will help keep jobs in America but his critics counter it will raise consumer prices and risk a trade war.
While Trump criticized Hillary Clinton for saying she’d put coal miners and their employers out of business, he also implied some ideological conservatives don’t understand how trade works.
“We’re gonna bring those miners back, you’re gonna be so proud of your president,” he declared.
