Senate lawmakers from heavily agricultural states have expressed alarm over the recent escalation in the White House’s ongoing trade war with China. Lawmakers from both parties said President Trump’s insistence that the tariffs will boost the economy and bring in revenue misunderstands how tariffs work.
“Tariffs are taxes, and we are all going to pay because of this trade war,” said Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., in a Senate floor speech. “In Alabama are farmers in particular are hurting … The last thing they need is an another administration disaster manufactured because of the Chinese tariffs on their crops.”
Last week, the White House raised tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25%, up from 10% in most cases, and moved to place 25% tariffs on a further $300 billion of goods. Beijing said that it would hike tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods to as high as 25% in retaliation. Trump defended his China trade policies in a series of tweets, arguing his administration had the upper hand.
“China buys MUCH less from us than we buy from them, by almost 500 Billion Dollars, so we are in a fantastic position,” Trump tweeted.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., told reporters Tuesday that Trump’s claims failed basic economics. “I want to address very directly the idea of who pays for the tariff itself. In a literal sense, it is very clear and obvious that it is the consuming party that pays the tariff,” he said. “The tariff is imposed on the American company or consumer doing the importing.”
Toomey added that he was disturbed by the prospect that the Trump administration was going to increase aid to the agricultural community, noting recent tweets by the president promising as much as $15 billion to farmers. Toomey called it a problematic development that “handouts” to farmers would be increased.
Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a joint statement: “It’s been more than a year since President Trump first launched a haphazard, ill-planned trade war with China that raised taxes on a number of Virginia commodities. The escalation means continued uncertainty for Virginia’s soybean farmers, who continue to brace for the worst every time the word ‘tariffs’ is said in the Oval Office. ”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a sometime critic of Trump’s trade policies, defended the escalation, and argued that farmers needed somebody to get tough on China so it will open its markets. “Farmers want that change and they’re going to stand behind the firm position that the White House has taken,” he said. “They know that China has to live by the rules of international trade just like the United States and almost the rest of the world does.”
