‘National Sales Tax Day’: Trump’s Global Tariffs Will Cause Prices To Rise
Even some Republicans have begun criticizing Trump trade policy
The tariffs Donald Trump imposed on nations across the globe will cause prices to rise for US consumers and cause more — not less — economic pain.
That’s according not only to Democrats but even a surprising few Republican senators who bucked Trump to pass a measure to try to block the new duties.
Trump announced his new array of tariffs Wednesday at the White House, imposing levies on large and small countries alike — even some island nations that are barely inhabited and have virtually no economies to speak of.
Launching this new global trade war, Trump labeled Wednesday as “Liberation Day” for the United States.
Others had different names for it.
“This is not Liberation Day, it’s Recession Day in the United States of America. That’s what the Trump tariffs are going to do — crash the economy,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) called it “National Sales Tax Day.”
“Our constituents have had it. They go to the grocery store, the prices are up. And now they’re starting to see lumber go up, and they’re starting to see gas prices go up,” the senator said. “And all of this is in part caused, in a big, big way, by these tariffs.
“And the thought that Donald Trump has now landed 10 percent [tariffs] across the world on all these countries — even more on our allies in Europe — it’s going to cause even more problems for the economy.”
These tariffs amount to a new $5,000 tax per American family, Klobuchar said.
“So I don’t call it ‘Liberation Day,’” she said. “I call it National Sales Tax Day. And that’s exactly what Donald Trump did to people today.”
A group of four Republican senators surprisingly agree with Klobuchar.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined Klobuchar and all Senate Democrats in passing a resolution from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, that would end that national emergency that Trump declared earlier this year to justify his new tariffs.
But Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to bring the Senate bill to a vote so the Senate action is just symbolic.
Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, said that tariffs aren’t just bad economically but politically as Americans voters punish Republicans in coming elections for the economic pain.
“Tariffs have also led to political decimation. When McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the [next] national election. When Smoot and Hawley put on a tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years,” he said. “So they’re not only bad economically, they are bad politically.”
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