President Trump stood firmly behind his recent decisions to apply tariffs to foreign goods, despite an increasing number of retaliatory import taxes on U.S. goods, saying that non-public negotiations are promising.
Trump said if trade negotiations failed, he would be satisfied with that outcome, too.
“Other countries are negotiating and without tariffs, you could never do that,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “And if they don’t want to negotiate, then we’ll do the tariffs. Just remember, we’re the bank. We’re the bank that everybody wants to steal from and plunder.”
Although the European Union, China, and Canada either have imposed or threatened retaliatory tariffs this year, Trump said there were promising trade negotiations, though his precise messaging fluctuated.
“To me, there’s no uncertainty. To other people that happen to be smart, there’s no uncertainty,” Trump said.
“Every country — any country that you can mention has been extremely nice, less to the media probably. Extremely nice. They want to negotiate a deal. And we’re open to that. We’re open to that. But it’s going to be very strong,” he said.
Later, he added: “They are coming back to negotiate. Frankly, if they don’t negotiate, I’m OK with that. I would rather get the tax.”
Trump also hammered the Harley-Davidson motorcycle maker, which is moving jobs overseas and opening a manufacturing facility in Thailand, accusing the company of falsely associating the move with recent tariffs.
“They announced it earlier this year. Harley-Davidson is using that as an excuse and I don’t like that, because I’ve been very good to Harley-Davidson,” Trump said. “They used it as an excuse. I think the people that ride Harleys are not happy with Harley-Davidson. And I wouldn’t be either.”
Trump said he was working to replace “stupid trade” with free trade, and expressed a desire to retain U.S. technology, calling tech companies “our great jewels.”
“We want to have our jewels. Those are our great jewels. That’s like United States Steel from 70 years ago, these companies,” he said. “We have to protect these companies. We can’t let people steal that we have the greatest technology in the world. People copy it and steal it.”
