In an interview with CNN, former Vice President Mike Pence expressed concern about President Trump's tariffs.
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00:00On the economy, you obviously were serving as vice president the last time President Trump
00:03was putting tariffs in place. He's gone much bigger and broader this time, and he seems to
00:08be downplaying any concerns that people have about a recession. Instead, he's arguing in the long run
00:14his policies will be successful. Do you worry, though, that the tariffs he's putting in place
00:19could potentially lead the U.S. into a recession?
00:22Well, let me back up for a second and say that I really do believe that President Trump's
00:29historic reelection last year was in many respects not just a reflection of a personality, but
00:38it was also that what I heard all over the country is that people wanted to get back to the policies
00:43of our administration. In addition to strong American leadership on the world stage, which
00:50we can get into in a minute, it also was that we cut taxes, rolled back regulation, unleashed
00:56American energy. But we also used targeted tariffs, particularly against China, after decades
01:03of trade abuses and intellectual property theft. We brought China to the table and achieved
01:09that 2020 phase one trade deal that was truly historic and was a beginning of changing the
01:16dynamic of our relationship with China. So now, as I see this administration, I do have
01:22concerns that with the President's call for broad-based tariffs against friend and foe alike, that ultimately
01:35the administration is advancing policies that are not targeted at countries that have been
01:40abusing our trade relationship, but rather are essentially new industrial policy that will result
01:47in inflation, that will harm consumers, and ultimately harm the American economy. So again, I want to be clear,
01:54when it comes to China, when it comes to decades of trade abuses, my view always is free trade with free
02:01nations. That we ought to be engaging our trading partners across the free world to lower trade barriers, lower
02:09non-tariff barriers, and subsidies. But when it comes to authoritarian regimes, we ought to get tough, stay tough, and demand that they open their markets and respect our intellectual property.
02:22He dubbed it Liberation Day, and you wrote in reference to that, that the only thing that Americans had been liberated from were trillions of dollars in investments. Do you think he understands the impact that it could be having on regular Americans?
02:34I think he does. But he's still doing it anyway, in your view?
02:41You know, President Trump and I had many long conversations about trade in our four and a half years. I strongly supported our administration's policies on trade, including the get tough policies with Mexico and Canada that resulted in the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, the largest trade agreement in U.S. history. But we were well on our
03:04way. We'd renegotiated a trade agreement with South Korea. We were well on our way to a new trade agreement with Japan, with the U.K., even the EU was in discussions. But it was all based on using his instinct that tariffs serve the American economy to bring our trading partners to the table to open up markets.
03:25My concern now is I see the president following more of what I think has been his historic view, that at the end of the day, a certain minimum threshold of tariffs on all goods coming into the country will serve the American public and our economy.
03:43Some people believe that. I hold the view that trade means jobs and that if we were to erect even the 10 percent minimum tariff that is on today, if that was all that remained after this, I think ultimately it would stifle American growth, limit prosperity, drive up costs for American consumers.
04:06We ought to be driving again toward that principle of free trade with free nations and standing tough, standing firm on authoritarian regimes like China.