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|---|---|---|
| And that's it for us. | ||
| Coming up, we'll have the Senate Commerce Committee considering the nominations of Jared Isaacman for Administrator of NASA and Olivia Trustee to be a member of the FCC. | ||
| That's coming up here on C-SPAN. | ||
| But that's it for us today on Washington Journal. | ||
| We'll be back tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern. | ||
| Thanks for watching and have a great day. | ||
| Democracy is always an unfinished creation. | ||
| Democracy is worth dying for. | ||
| Democracy belongs to us all. | ||
| We are here in the sanctuary of democracy. | ||
| Great responsibilities fall once again to the great democracies. | ||
| American democracy is bigger than any one person. | ||
| Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We are still at our core a democracy. | |
| This is also a massive victory for democracy and for freedom. | ||
| Welcome to today's Washington Journal. | ||
| Glad you're with us. | ||
| We'll start with more from Caroline Levitt at yesterday's press conference addressing China's tariffs. | ||
| Here she is. | ||
| You mentioned the 70 countries or so. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm curious, though, under what conditions at this point would President Trump talk to President Xi about tariffs? | |
| Look, I just spoke to the president about this, and he believes that China wants to make a deal with the United States. | ||
| He believes China has to make a deal with the United States. | ||
| It was a mistake for China to retaliate. | ||
| The president, when America is punched, he punches back harder. | ||
| That's why there will be 104% tariffs going into effect on China tonight at midnight. | ||
| But the president believes that Xi and China want to make a deal. | ||
| They just don't know how to get that started. | ||
| And the President also wanted me to tell all of you that if China reaches out to make a deal, he'll be incredibly gracious, but he's going to do what's best for the American people. | ||
| So China has to call first. | ||
| The Chinese want to make a deal. | ||
| They just don't know how to do it. | ||
| But the president will be implementing these 104% tariffs on China tonight. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What conditions might he consider lowering tariffs on China at this point? | |
| It would be imprudent of me to tell you those conditions here from the podium. | ||
| That was the press secretary yesterday, and we are taking your calls, getting your reaction on the 104% tariffs on Chinese imports. | ||
| Here's a reaction from the Chinese Commerce Ministry. | ||
| They put this out yesterday, reported by the AP. | ||
| It says this. | ||
| The countermeasures China has taken are aimed at safeguarding its sovereignty, security, and development interests and maintaining the normal international trade order. | ||
| They are completely legitimate. | ||
| The U.S. threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake and once again exposes the blackmailing nature of the U.S. of the U.S. China will never accept this. | ||
| If the U.S. insists on its own way, China will fight to the end. | ||
| Wonder what you think about that. | ||
| Here's the Washington Post this morning with the headline, China remains defiant as Trump's 104% tariffs take effect. | ||
| Stocks sink. | ||
| Markets in Asia slumped as tariffs on products from 86 countries kicked in. | ||
| China said it would protect its economy, but also that it was open to dialogue. | ||
| It says that today Beijing said that it called for dialogue with Washington, even as it vowed to take, quote, forceful measures to protect the Chinese economy from President Donald Trump's 104% minimum tariffs. | ||
| We'll go to the calls now to Karen in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, Republican. | ||
| Good morning, Karen. | ||
|
unidentified
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Good morning. | |
| I am 110% in support of these tariffs against China. | ||
| The reasons? | ||
| Fentanyl deaths. | ||
| How many of those? | ||
| How many children have died from that? | ||
| How about stealing our technology? | ||
| We put all of the money and all of the time and resources into our technology and into research, and they steal it and they undermine our businesses. | ||
| So our harm to our American businesses and our families. | ||
| COVID deaths. | ||
| Chinese cover-up of the COVID virus origin is a crime against humanity. | ||
| They need to be held accountable. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here's CJ in Falls Church, Virginia, Independent Line. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, good morning. | |
| Yeah, the tone of this president is so unbecoming of any adult that I've ever met, much less somebody who should have the chops to be an actual statesman on the world stage. | ||
| And so not only are his policies reckless, trade deals are done all the time. | ||
| You don't have to talk about them. | ||
| You don't have to trash people's cultures. | ||
| Whether you think we're getting ripped off or not, be careful what you wish for, America, because we created this global system. | ||
| We created a liberal, for the most part, world, liberal in the old school sense. | ||
| I don't mean like American conservative liberal. | ||
| But our values of being outgoing people, an outgoing society, are things that we used to be the proudest of. | ||
| And now we're so scared that somebody's going to take something from us. | ||
| Well, why can't we just be a little bit better? | ||
| I grew up in a total blue-collar, you know, both my parents were union workers. | ||
| You know, what would be considered a very poor situation by today's standards. | ||
| But there's a way to do these things. | ||
| So, CJ, why do you think the tariffs would be bad for the United States? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, first of all, the promise that Trump is making on the back end is we're going to make so much money, then we're going to be able to give some more tax breaks back. | |
| Well, why don't we use any money that we get to pay down the debt? | ||
| Because the debt is the single biggest economic crusher. | ||
| And the old adage of like, you know, since 1980 with Ronald Reagan coming on the scene saying, you know, government's not the answer. | ||
| Government is the problem. | ||
| Well, how come it's only our government that's the problem? | ||
| How can a Chinese communist country beat us consistently for the last 25 years since they sort of like started opening up their society? | ||
| All right, CJ. | ||
| We're going to talk to Ryan now in New Orleans, Democrat. | ||
| Good morning, Ryan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, how are you doing? | |
| I think the tariffs are awful. | ||
| I think that, but you have to blame the American people from voting this dude into office. | ||
| You cannot live without the rest of the world. | ||
| And what this dude is doing, this president is, man, he's awful, man. | ||
| This is ridiculous for these days and times. | ||
| For this man to come up in here and do what he's doing, he'd infired people in altered people's lives. | ||
| And the American people are just sitting around like, like, nothing ain't going on, man. | ||
| This president didn't fired people. | ||
| So why do you not like the tariffs, though, getting back to that on Chinese imports? | ||
|
unidentified
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I don't like the tariffs because you have to live with the rest of the world. | |
| Catch up. | ||
| You can't just impose things because you want to do it. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| You can't trust this president. | ||
| That's what he's saying. | ||
| I don't see nothing wrong with China. | ||
| They're the ones making the little bitty things that we need. | ||
| And if get some millionaires and billionaires in the United States to make some of the things they make and put it at a cheaper price and we can live. | ||
| That's all I got. | ||
| Lovely. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And President Trump spoke at a fundraiser for the National Republican Congressional Committee last night, and he mentioned China. | ||
| Here he is. | ||
| What other presidents allow China to get away with is absolutely criminal, but I'm not like the other presidents, and it's not going to happen under President Trump. | ||
| It's just not going to happen. | ||
| After all of the abuses they've perpetrated, China's attempting to impose additional unjustified tariffs. | ||
| Just so you understand, they all got rich because of tariffs. | ||
| Now when we do it, oh, it's so terrible. | ||
| What Trump is doing is so terrible. | ||
| They got rich. | ||
| And not only China, many countries. | ||
| I mean, you look at Vietnam, you look at so many. | ||
| I could name 50 right now. | ||
| Biden couldn't do that. | ||
| He couldn't name any. | ||
| Name one country. | ||
| Name any country. | ||
| What's the name of our country? | ||
| He doesn't know. | ||
| That's why additional tariffs on Chinese goods are in place effective midnight tonight at 104%. | ||
| Until they make a deal with us, that's what it's going to be. | ||
| I think they'll make a deal at some point. | ||
| China will, they want to make a deal. | ||
| They really do. | ||
| They want to make a deal. | ||
| They just don't know how to get it started because they're proud people. | ||
| And back to the phones now to Timothy in Idaho, Republican. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| Well, right now, the temporary effect of the 104% is, of course, in the stock market. | ||
| But I would like to inform the United States that if the president could control the stock market, it would have gone to infinity on 5 July 1776. | ||
| That's number three. | ||
| Number two, in a trade differential, there's always a kickback. | ||
| And Trump has been polite to not mention or hammer on the kickbacks and all these other funding channels that happened with administrations and with, for example, Hunter Biden shell corporations, that whole Ukraine financing. | ||
| Okay, but number one, better the pain now than the pain later. | ||
| I work in technology, and it's better to solve this problem now. | ||
| And I thank you for that. | ||
| So in your work, Timothy, what kind of products, what's coming from overseas that would be affected by tariffs? | ||
| Specifically, what's coming from China? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Anything from your oh my god, during the collapse of the Reagan aerospace days, the Department of Defense capitulated and went to commercial off-the-shelf Chinese products. |