WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Americans will “pay a little bit” for the tariffs his administration is imposing against China but “it’s worth it.”
Trump explained that the U.S. and China “had a deal and they broke it.”
“But they took out a lot of the things that we negotiated that were done, and I said, ‘Can’t do that. Sorry, you can’t do that. You’ve been doing that too long to our poor presidents that had no clue what was happening and you can’t do that.’ So we’re putting tariffs – we have 25 percent tariffs on $250 billion,” Trump said during a speech at the National Association of REALTORS Legislative Meetings and Trade Expo on Friday.
“And they’re paying it and believe me, you know, so many people say our people pay. They’ll pay a little bit but it’s worth it. It’s really worth it. But, you know, China subsidizes these big plants so it’s not really coming. And they keep the price the same and they subsidize it,” he added.
Trump continued, “If we build here, there are no tariffs. You know, people don’t realize that. If we build here, you know, right now we’re – you become dependent on buying things from outside. If we put a little factory or whatever, to make whatever product they’re buying and a lot of people are now looking at it. And the other alternative: You buy from another country where they’re not tariffed, where they’re treating us more fairly and we don’t tariff them.”
Trump said his administration is going to help farmers while the tariffs are implemented.
“So it’s hundreds of billions of dollars and out of that, we’re going to give a portion of it to our farmers, because these are great patriots. These are people that don’t want anything. They just want a fair playing surface,” he said. “And our farmers are doing — going to do really well. I mean, they’re doing well, but they’re going to do really well.”
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