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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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Speaker 2: The European Parliament is sent to freeze ratification of its

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Speaker 2: US trade deal, the block demanding clarity after President Trump's

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Speaker 2: new fifteen percent tariff.

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Speaker 1: The move follows the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 2: Ruling limiting his emergency powers. You leaders say approval can't

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Speaker 2: move forward mid growing trade uncertainty. Let's stay on tariffs.

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Speaker 2: And I'm joined now by Missouri Representative Jason Smith, who

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Speaker 2: also serves as the chairman of the House Ways and

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Speaker 2: Means Committee, and he is the chief tax writer in Congress.

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Speaker 2: Chairman Smith, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

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Speaker 2: Let's start with the elephant in the room. The tariffs

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Speaker 2: were a big source of fiscal revenue for twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 2: Do you anticipate that that all will get refunded, and

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Speaker 2: if not all, much of it will get refunded.

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Speaker 3: Now, to say that the tariffs were a significant impact

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Speaker 3: of revenue is to say it lightly. In fact, it

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Speaker 3: has been projected by the Congressional Budget Office that the

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Speaker 3: tariffs that were in place would reduce the national deficit

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Speaker 3: by three trillion dollars, and.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty substantial.

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Speaker 3: However, the Supreme Court decision is not going to affect

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Speaker 3: the revenue that's coming in for the most part, because under.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the Federal Trade.

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Speaker 3: Statutes in regards to unfair trade, whether it's Section one,

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Speaker 3: twenty two, three oh one, or two thirty two, the

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Speaker 3: President is going to be able to levy his authority

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Speaker 3: to implement virtually the same tariffs that were in place

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Speaker 3: under IEPA that the Supreme Court throughout.

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Speaker 2: Sure, but the tariffs that were implemented through IEPA. Representative Smith,

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Speaker 2: is it your message maybe to Corporate America that if

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Speaker 2: they've joined this lawsuit, that maybe they shouldn't be expecting

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Speaker 2: the tariff free funds? How do you expect that to

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Speaker 2: play out?

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Speaker 3: You know, it's really unfortunate that the Supreme Court was

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Speaker 3: crickets when it came to their very large, their large opinion,

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Speaker 3: but they didn't even address this. So of course now

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Speaker 3: it's going to be reprimanded down to the lower courts.

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Speaker 3: They will make those decisions, but it's going to.

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Speaker 1: Be a process.

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Speaker 3: It's going to take three to four years probably before

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Speaker 3: it's addressed.

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Speaker 2: There is this question of uncertainty that's certainly one of them.

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Speaker 2: Chairman Smith, what's going to happen with the refunds. But

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Speaker 2: then there's this other lingering uncertainty of having a president

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Speaker 2: who first announced is ten percent tariffs and then fifteen

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Speaker 2: percent with Section one twenty two, which can only be

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Speaker 2: in place for a limited number of days. How is

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Speaker 2: this helping uncertainty in corporate America? Do you think that

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Speaker 2: there could have been an argument to just say, Okay,

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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court has made its decision and we carry

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Speaker 2: on as is.

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Speaker 3: You know, certainty is great for the economy. That's why

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Speaker 3: we passed the big, beautiful bill, the Working Families Tax Cut,

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Speaker 3: six months early, to give this certainty to those small businesses,

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Speaker 3: those big companies. But in regards to the tariffs, I

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Speaker 3: think it's very certain there's probably not going to be

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Speaker 3: any refunds. I don't see a pathway in Congress that

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Speaker 3: there's going to be refunds. And so you're going to

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Speaker 3: look at over so course of the President Trump's administration,

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Speaker 3: he's going to continue to use those tariff revenues to

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Speaker 3: bring down the deficit.

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Speaker 2: There is another matter to this, though, and it can

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Speaker 2: easily and many people have framed this as simply a

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Speaker 2: consumer price hike. Representative Smith, do you expect that all

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Speaker 2: of the Republicans in Congress will be behind this when

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Speaker 2: we're just three and a half months away from a

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Speaker 2: midterm election where affordability is on the ticket.

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Speaker 3: I think it's very important to understand trade policy just

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Speaker 3: as a whole of where it is with all Americans,

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Speaker 3: but also all members of Congress and the United States Senate.

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Speaker 3: It's a deeply divided issue. Whether you're Republican or whether

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Speaker 3: you're Democrat. There's not a uniform opinion of one party.

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Speaker 3: In fact, you have Democrats that agree with Republicans, and

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Speaker 3: Republicans agree with Democrats on various aspects of whether they're

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Speaker 3: pro tariffs or they're anti tariffs. So if something moves

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Speaker 3: forward from a legislative perspective, it will have to be

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Speaker 3: bipartisan because it is such a bipartisan division when it

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Speaker 3: comes to those different items. But let's look at what

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Speaker 3: tariffs have done. We have the lowest trade deficits since

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Speaker 3: two thousand and nine, and when you refund tariffs, you're

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Speaker 3: refunding money to corporations that benefit by purchasing products outside

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Speaker 3: of the United States. Who benefited from tariffs was the

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Speaker 3: US manufacturers and US farmers.

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Speaker 2: So to be clear, are you and your colleagues working

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Speaker 2: on legislation right now to codify tariffs.

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Speaker 3: We've been working on trade legislation throughout my three years

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Speaker 3: as Chairman of the Ways and Means. If you if

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Speaker 3: you just look at most recently in the last month,

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Speaker 3: we reinstituted and extended the Haiti and the Gooa trade

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Speaker 3: preferences programs. So we're in the middle of all the

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Speaker 3: different trading aspects. If you look at the Big Beautiful Bill,

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Speaker 3: we addressed a minimus when it came to China and

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Speaker 3: other packages coming in the United States.

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Speaker 1: We're going to continue to do so. Tariffs are not.

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Speaker 2: The debt is still exploding because in large part the

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Speaker 2: one big Beautiful Bill, Representative Smith, are we done cutting

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Speaker 2: the deficit? Is this it for now?

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Speaker 1: We can't be done cutting the deficit.

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Speaker 3: When you look at a national security threat, it's definitely

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Speaker 3: our fiscal house. When you're looking at approaching forty trillion

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Speaker 3: dollars in national debt, we have to be looking at

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Speaker 3: ways to trim the budget twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 2: So are you then, with all of this disappointed in

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Speaker 2: a lot of your Republican colleagues. There have been some

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Speaker 2: Senator Paul Representative Bacon, who publicly applauded the Supreme Court ruling.

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Speaker 2: Representative Smith, it doesn't seem like there's cohesion at this moment.

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Speaker 3: Well, Senator Paul didn't vote for the Big Beautiful Bill either.

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Speaker 3: So there's always division within the Republican Party. But guess what,

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Speaker 3: there's bigger division in the Democrat Party Because Hakeem Jeffries

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Speaker 3: is not even the minority leader of the House. His

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Speaker 3: lip base affects all of his policies A decisions. That's

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Speaker 3: why we're in a government shutdown right now with the

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Speaker 3: Department of Homeland Security and why they're not funding TSA

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Speaker 3: agents in the airport, why they're not funding FEMA, and

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Speaker 3: why they're not funding the US Coast Guard.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of backlash this weekend about a

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Speaker 2: brief decision to shut down TSA pre check. Chairman Smith,

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Speaker 2: where do we stand on funding the Department of Homeland Security?

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Speaker 1: Is there any movement?

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Speaker 3: There has been zero movement from what I have seen.

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Speaker 3: The Democrats are demanding unrealistic expectations and solutions. They're the

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Speaker 3: ones who shut down government. They need to come back

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Speaker 3: to the table and make sure those TSA agents, the Coastguard,

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Speaker 3: the Secret Service, FEMA that they have paychecks.

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Speaker 2: There still has been just mass outrage about what's happening

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Speaker 2: with immigration and with ICE. Representative Smith, Where would anyone

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Speaker 2: budge on this? How does it come to a solution?

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Speaker 3: Well, what doesn't make sense is that they say they

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Speaker 3: want to defund ICE, but guess what. ICE was funded

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Speaker 3: for four years in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

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Speaker 1: So by shutting down.

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Speaker 3: The Department of Homeland Security budget that does not affect

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Speaker 3: funding of ICE. ICE is continuing to be funded because

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Speaker 3: we did it for four years. So it is absolutely

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Speaker 3: only politics of why the Democrats are shutting down government.

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Speaker 3: They say that they're doing to defund ICE, but they

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Speaker 3: know that they're not defunding ICE by shutting down.

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Speaker 2: Pro Some of the polls, though, have moved in the

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Speaker 2: wrong direction for this administration on things the President ran

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Speaker 2: on immigration, on this economy, on affordability again, three and

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Speaker 2: a half months away from the midterms. Is this an

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Speaker 2: administration and a party a GOP that risks losing control

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Speaker 2: of the narrative.

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Speaker 3: Anyone can find a poll that favors their narrative, There's

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Speaker 3: no question about it. What I will say is is

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Speaker 3: I was back home in my Congressional district. All last

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Speaker 3: week traveling throughout my twenty eight counties, and people were

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Speaker 3: very portive of the President's immigration policies and securing the border,

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Speaker 3: and the fact that three million people have illegals have

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Speaker 3: been deported or voluntarily left.

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Speaker 2: I still think some of the images coming out have

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Speaker 2: shocked people. But all this said, Representative Smith, there are

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Speaker 2: a lot of issues that this administration now needs to tackle,

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Speaker 2: especially in light of Friday's ruling. What are you expecting

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Speaker 2: for the president State of the Union address tomorrow?

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Speaker 3: I think the President's going to highlight what he's done

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Speaker 3: in his first year in office, which I believe what

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Speaker 3: President Trump has done in his first year of office

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Speaker 3: is more than what most presidents do in eight years,

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Speaker 3: when you look at securing the border, which we just discussed,

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Speaker 3: creating the largest tax cut in US history, and fulfilling

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Speaker 3: his campaign promises of no tax on tips, no tax

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Speaker 3: on overtime, tax relief for seniors, increasing the child tax credit,

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Speaker 3: creating the Trump Investment Accounts, making one hundred percent expensing

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Speaker 3: of new factories. You've seen more than ten trillion dollars

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Speaker 3: of investment come back into the United States. We have

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Speaker 3: the lowest interest rate in five years, the lowest gas

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Speaker 3: prices in five years, and guess what, the murder rate

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Speaker 3: in the United States is the lowest since nineteen hundred.

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Speaker 3: These are huge successes. But when you look on the

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Speaker 3: foreign stage, the president has eliminated eight different conflicts, so

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Speaker 3: I think that's a lot of success that some presidents

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Speaker 3: would be begging for, although.

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Speaker 2: There might be another conflicts brewing with a run or

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Speaker 2: at least an escalation, which also might un do some

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Speaker 2: of the work in gas and oil prices. Representative Smith,

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Speaker 2: we're going to have to leave it there. Thank you

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Speaker 2: for joining us. Representative Jason Smith, Chairman of the House

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Speaker 2: Ways and Means Committee,