President Trump stated in an interview Sunday that rising costs on sure gadgets amid his commerce wars are “peanuts” compared to cheaper gasoline.
Within the interview on “Meet the Press,” NBC Information’s Kristen Welker famous that “some prices are going up, tires, strollers, some clothing in the wake of your tariffs.”
“Excuse me, that’s peanuts compared to energy,” Trump interrupted. “Energy is 60 percent of the costs. Energy is the big —”
Welker minimize in, noting that Trump “campaigned on a promise to bring prices down on day one.”
“Well, I don’t know, when you say, ‘Strollers are going up,’ what kind of a thing — I’m saying gasoline is going down. Gasoline is thousands of times more important than a stroller,” Trump stated.
By Trump’s one hundredth day in workplace final week, the common worth of gasoline had dipped round 50 cents per gallon from a 12 months prior, in keeping with information from AAA.
Trump’s latest tariffs, in the meantime, have rattled markets throughout the globe, strained relationships with longtime allies reminiscent of Canada and the European Union and elevated nervousness across the economic system within the U.S. and overseas.
The large tariffs he has imposed on China specifically — going as excessive as 145 p.c — are elevating fears about empty cabinets and hovering costs.
Through the interview with Welker, the president claimed credit score for optimistic features of the economic system and went after former President Biden for the struggling components.
“I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy, because he’s done a terrible job,” Trump stated. “He did a terrible job on everything.”
In a Sunday opinion piece for The Wall Road Journal, Treasury Division Secretary Scott Bessent defended what he referred to as Trump’s “economic rebalancing” amid rising issues concerning his dealing with of the economic system.
Bessent stated within the Journal piece that the president “wants to ensure working families aren’t left behind in the next era of economic growth — as many were in the last.”
“In the first 100 days of his presidency, we have laid the groundwork to rebalance global trade, restore America’s industrial base, and build an economy that allows Wall Street and Main Street to rise together. To understand the urgency of this economic rebalancing, it’s critical to understand why it is necessary in the first place,” he stated.
