Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: I always trust in the president. He's playing three dimensional chess.
Speaker 2: You can have points of view, you win some, you
Speaker 2: lose some, but I always trust his judgment.
Speaker 1: Peter Navarro, economist, White House trade advisor, and the man
Speaker 1: who went to jail for President Trump.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, this morning I did walk out of a
Speaker 2: federal prisident.
Speaker 1: Who would you trust to continue this agenda?
Speaker 2: You got jd Vance's the vice president and Marco Rubio.
Speaker 3: That would be the great ticket.
Speaker 1: From Bloomberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 1: Michelle Hussein. It's been a dramatic start to the new
Speaker 1: year for the Trump administration. First the season of Venezuela's leader,
Speaker 1: Nicholas Maduro and saying the US will be running that
Speaker 1: country at least for now, and then renewed talk of
Speaker 1: acquiring Greenland, which is part of Denmark, a NATO ally.
Speaker 1: Given Greenland's minerals and Venezuela's oil, all of this is
Speaker 1: another demonstration of just how acutely aligned US trade policy
Speaker 1: and foreign policy now are. But there's also a really
Speaker 1: important aspect to the trade story that is bubbling at
Speaker 1: home in the US, and it's part of this conversation
Speaker 1: with Peter Navarro, the man who has probably influenced Donald
Speaker 1: Trump on tariffs more than anyone else, a man who's
Speaker 1: been at his side for years. Right now, the administration
Speaker 1: is waiting for the Supreme Court to have it say
Speaker 1: on the legal basis for last year's tariffs, and if
Speaker 1: the White House loses, the implications are considerable. So keep
Speaker 1: that in mind as you listen. Navara and I spoke
Speaker 1: in Washington before the Venezuela developments, but the way he
Speaker 1: sees the world is a crucial insight into how the
Speaker 1: Trump circle thinks and why Dr Navara welcome, Thanks for
Speaker 1: being with us.
Speaker 3: Great to be with you.
Speaker 1: I wondered if we could start with the origins of
Speaker 1: your bond with the President. When did you meet him
Speaker 1: for the first time.
Speaker 2: It goes back to two thousand and six, when I
Speaker 2: wrote the first book in what would be my China trilogy.
Speaker 2: This is a book called The Coming China Wars, and
Speaker 2: at the time it was widely viewed as hyperbole. Right
Speaker 2: now it reads like a government report basically based on
Speaker 2: my research. I had parsed the Chinese economic model, the
Speaker 2: prevailing view in the early two thousand thousands, as China
Speaker 2: had joined the World Trade Organization it was beginning to
Speaker 2: inundate the world with their dump manufactured products.
Speaker 3: Was that it was simply cheap labor.
Speaker 2: And but my analysis showed that was a lot more
Speaker 2: than that. Things I would eventually call the seven Deadly
Speaker 2: Mercantile of sins, which is to say that China said
Speaker 2: about taking the world apart using things like high government subsidies,
Speaker 2: intellectual property, theft, unfasting, piracy, the whole state owned enterprise,
Speaker 2: the whole gamut. So I had spent several years doing
Speaker 2: research on that, published becoming China Wars. And then in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven President Trump was doing an interview and they
Speaker 2: asked him what his favorite books on China were, and
Speaker 2: mine was on the top ten list. So I sent
Speaker 2: him a note of thanks and we changed correspondences. There'll
Speaker 2: be type letters, but he'll always put a handwritten note
Speaker 2: in it. And that how that began. And when he
Speaker 2: went down the escalator with Milania and declared, I sent
Speaker 2: him a note, say, hey, you need anything, and they
Speaker 2: called me. In twenty sixteen, I was supposed to go
Speaker 2: out to New York just for a couple of days
Speaker 2: and I meet him there.
Speaker 3: It was pretty funny.
Speaker 2: I get into this black suv in the back seat, right,
Speaker 2: and we're getting ready to go to the airport and
Speaker 2: get in his plane to go to a rally, famous rallies.
Speaker 2: And he gets in the front seat and he's going, Hey, Rupert,
Speaker 2: what's going on. It's like he's stalking to Murdoch. And
Speaker 2: then he hangs up and he looks at back and
Speaker 2: he goes, who's that because you never seen me before?
Speaker 2: And I introduced myself and that's kind of how it happened.
Speaker 1: So you bonded. You bonded over China, essentially your views
Speaker 1: on China, and then China became a big rallying point
Speaker 1: for him in his first in his first run for
Speaker 1: the White House. I want to understand something about how
Speaker 1: your views evolved because you used to be a Democrat, right,
Speaker 1: You used to talk about how bad protectionism would be
Speaker 1: not only for the US but the global economy.
Speaker 2: Well, you're conflating a few things there, because historically Democrats
Speaker 2: were the ones who were protectionists, who were in favor
Speaker 2: of basically defending the American working class against unfair trade.
Speaker 2: And we had in our history of this republic, a
Speaker 2: very long history of defending our manufacturing base. If you
Speaker 2: go back to Alexander Hamilton, first Treasury secretary, he wrote
Speaker 2: a very stunning book about manufactur and the need to
Speaker 2: protect it. Lincoln was a tariff man. McKinley was a
Speaker 2: tariff man. Henry Clay was a tariff man. I mean,
Speaker 2: all of these famous figures, and up until nineteen thirteen,
Speaker 2: the United States actually funded its government entirely through tariff revenues,
Speaker 2: if you knew that. And then we had passed the
Speaker 2: income tax and kind of shifted away from that. And
Speaker 2: one of the running jokes the bosson I have is like,
Speaker 2: who figured the China thing out first? And of course
Speaker 2: he did, because if you go back, there's a famous
Speaker 2: interview with him in Oprah Winfrey back in the eighties,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't talking about China, but he was talking
Speaker 2: about Japan and how they were taking us apart with
Speaker 2: unfair trade, and everything he said back then would then
Speaker 2: fit the China model. Now, with respect to my evolution
Speaker 2: of thought, my first exposure to kind of the Chinese
Speaker 2: economic model was when I was in a peace corps
Speaker 2: in Thailand, and what was fascinating to me is that
Speaker 2: virtually everywhere you went in Asia, the commerce was run
Speaker 2: by Chinese.
Speaker 1: Even then it's before time, before Gint's joined the Double Well, this.
Speaker 2: Was the Chinese diaspora who had left because of miles,
Speaker 2: starvation and famine policies. So you fast forward to I'm
Speaker 2: teaching at the University of California Ravion business students who
Speaker 2: are fully employed. Right they come at night and on
Speaker 2: the weekends, and I'm noticing they're losing their jobs.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And this was circa two thousand and three, and curiously
Speaker 2: two years after China joined the World Trade Organization. So
Speaker 2: I looked into this and it's like all roads led
Speaker 2: to Beijing. I do the research project and I realized, hey,
Speaker 2: this this is cheating. It's devastating our manufacturing base, and
Speaker 2: I would continue that research.
Speaker 1: So bring us up to the present day. Then, because
Speaker 1: you were at President Trumps side in the first term,
Speaker 1: you went to jail for him.
Speaker 2: So to be clear, I went to prison in defense
Speaker 2: of the constitution, the constitutional separation of powers. Basically, what
Speaker 2: Congress did in the wake of the January sixth riots
Speaker 2: on Capitol Hill was engaging a partisan effort to unseat
Speaker 2: the president and make sure he never ran for office again.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much it changed you, because I'm struck
Speaker 1: reading your account of your prison days. How much you
Speaker 1: notice and document all the small pettiness, really, the meanness
Speaker 1: that you see around you, the withholding of medicines, the
Speaker 1: lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. Did you see a
Speaker 1: different America which has informed your politics?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: I grew up poor, I grew up in that miliu.
Speaker 2: It just in prison didn't change me at all. I
Speaker 2: changed prison. I changed that place. I changed the system.
Speaker 2: I went in there to defend the Constitution on principle,
Speaker 2: and instead of crying in my beer, I turned myself
Speaker 2: into an investigative reporter and covered a five billion dollar scandal.
Speaker 2: And since I've been out, I've solved that scandal and
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good achievement.
Speaker 3: So presently changed me? I changed it.
Speaker 1: And now you've been his trade counselor and advisor through
Speaker 1: this period. How's the relationship between the US and China
Speaker 1: on trade going?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Help us understand it.
Speaker 2: Look, it's a work in progress, the relationship with China.
Speaker 2: I am a veteran of the first term. I spent
Speaker 2: months and months and months with then the United States
Speaker 2: Trade Representative Robert Leitthheiser, one of the great American patriots
Speaker 2: and thinkers in this country, and we negotiated with the
Speaker 2: Chinese a very very comprehensive trade deal. It was an
Speaker 2: amazing thing that would have been really good for China
Speaker 2: as well as the United States because it would have
Speaker 2: completely reform Chinese model, and they agreed to it, and
Speaker 2: then at the last minute, Chi Jinping said no, okay.
Speaker 3: So that was that's like really important to understand.
Speaker 2: We went for a long over a year negotiating what
Speaker 2: would have been a perfect deal, and then at the
Speaker 2: end they backed out of that. And then we signed
Speaker 2: what was called the Skinny Deal, and that was in
Speaker 2: January of twenty twenty, the last year the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: and they.
Speaker 3: Didn't abide by that.
Speaker 2: So the problem that we always faced with China is
Speaker 2: that you always kind of wonder whether they're just stretching
Speaker 2: you out, whether even if you sign a deal, they're
Speaker 2: going to retrade it.
Speaker 1: And the US administration, which is why I want to
Speaker 1: understand what the actions currently are. For example, President Trump
Speaker 1: meets Siegen Ping and Essentially, you end up with a
Speaker 1: deal which lowers some tariffs and which suspends heightened tariffs.
Speaker 1: So there's effectively a year long trade truce. Is that
Speaker 1: keeping with your mission to avoid death by China?
Speaker 2: So you're burying the lead here. What's the current tariff
Speaker 2: rate now?
Speaker 1: Well, the ones I'm referring to are the lowering.
Speaker 3: Of some of the Well, what's the current rate after
Speaker 3: they've been lowered.
Speaker 1: Well, it's ten percent on some things.
Speaker 2: Right now, totally, total tariff on China is almost fifty percent. Okay,
Speaker 2: let me say it one more time. It's almost fifty percent.
Speaker 2: So when you say that we lowered the rates, we
Speaker 2: only lowered them down to fortyk.
Speaker 1: Imposed to fentanyl flows, and there was a suspension ciprocal tariffs.
Speaker 2: You have to understand there was a baseline tariff because
Speaker 2: of the Section three oh one actions in the first term.
Speaker 2: One of the few things Joe Biden kept that we
Speaker 2: added the reciprocal tariff to which is still in place,
Speaker 2: and a twenty percent fentanyl tariff, which we only lowered
Speaker 2: by ten percent. So those are robust tariffs on China,
Speaker 2: and in fact, we are strongly encouraging Europe to adopt
Speaker 2: exactly the same level of tariffs that we adopt for
Speaker 2: the simple reason that when the President puts up tariffs
Speaker 2: to defend America from Chinese cheating, China can't sell as
Speaker 2: much here where does it sell it? Dumps it in Europe,
Speaker 2: dumps it in Mexico. Now as we are talking, just
Speaker 2: in the recent news, Mexico did exactly what I'm suggesting,
Speaker 2: did so at the urging of our trade team, which
Speaker 2: is to say, the Senate in Mexico passed fifty cars
Speaker 2: on China. And they did it because China was dumping
Speaker 2: goods which would otherwise go in America. And Europe should.
Speaker 3: Follow the US and Mexican lead, and there are doing that.
Speaker 1: They're doing that and steel, and I seeing that in
Speaker 1: other countries. But I'm sure that you can see why.
Speaker 1: Looking at the US China relationship, one can see the
Speaker 1: contrast between when President Trump first arrived and we end
Speaker 1: up with a meeting after which he talks about having
Speaker 1: enormous respect between the two countries and how honored he
Speaker 1: is that presidency has has authorized the purchase of soybeans
Speaker 1: and other goods. So there is a softening.
Speaker 2: No, there's no softening, understand trump diplomacy works. And the
Speaker 2: great thing that people, particularly on the left oone understand
Speaker 2: is that it's functional for President Trump to have open
Speaker 2: lines with Shijin Ping, Vladimir Putin, to wand in Turkey,
Speaker 2: all of the people that the world regards as vicious dictators,
Speaker 2: which they are, but they are part of the world
Speaker 2: stage where you have to negotiate.
Speaker 1: So we have them saying enormous respect for China. That's
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. Do you have enormous respect?
Speaker 3: I have enormous respect for the Chinese people.
Speaker 2: Okay, the Chinese people are under the boot of Chinese
Speaker 2: Communist Party. If China is going to escape its own
Speaker 2: mercantilist economic model, which is screwing the world, including Europe,
Speaker 2: and causing tremendous instability in the financial system and great
Speaker 2: anger towards China, it needs to do one simple thing.
Speaker 2: It needs to lower the savings rate in China by
Speaker 2: providing a social safety net for his people.
Speaker 3: It's extraordinary that.
Speaker 2: A communist social list country has no protections with respect
Speaker 2: to pensions or healthcare for its people.
Speaker 3: That's extraordinary.
Speaker 2: And instead, what the Chinese do, because that's the way
Speaker 2: they roll, is they let the Communist Party members become rich,
Speaker 2: they let a smaller slice of the entrepreneurial class become rich,
Speaker 2: and then everybody else is allowed by Jings.
Speaker 1: I know how strongly you feel about this. You've written
Speaker 1: about it in successive books. I wonder if there are
Speaker 1: other people who would prioritize doing business with China who
Speaker 1: have influence over the president in a way that makes
Speaker 1: you less than comfortable. Jensen Nibs managed to get Nvidia
Speaker 1: H two hundred chips being sold to China. Are you
Speaker 1: comfortable with that.
Speaker 2: That's a work in progress, that's an ongoing dialogue. I
Speaker 2: think people have to understand that there's a constant negotiation
Speaker 2: going on with countries around the world. I mean, and
Speaker 2: the China relationship is a very difficult one. I think
Speaker 2: you left out the part about how China has weaponized
Speaker 2: rare earth critical minerals, which you're a critical part of
Speaker 2: virtually every high technology product that's made around the world.
Speaker 2: And China has been flexing its muscles now in Europe
Speaker 2: and India and the United States saying basically, we're going
Speaker 2: to do what we want and if you try to
Speaker 2: stop us, we're going to take away your critical minerals
Speaker 2: because they have they think they have a monopoly on it.
Speaker 3: But that's just a matter of time.
Speaker 2: American innovation is going to quickly wipe away that weaponization.
Speaker 3: So what do you do in the meantime?
Speaker 2: You do diplomacy And if people want to call that soft,
Speaker 2: then they don't understand the chessboard.
Speaker 1: So are you comfortable with China being able to buy
Speaker 1: in the videos the specific game? But the next generation AI.
Speaker 3: Ships not my wane? Okay?
Speaker 1: I accept it enables a lot of competition then with
Speaker 1: USAI companies.
Speaker 3: Let me let your viewers know this. I'm one of only.
Speaker 2: Three people who served as a senior advisor in the
Speaker 2: first Trump administration from the beginning to the end. That
Speaker 2: happened because I stay in my lane and ships are
Speaker 2: not my waye.
Speaker 1: I know from one of your books, taking Back Trump's America,
Speaker 1: that you know exactly what it's like to be part
Speaker 1: of an administration where different people have influence, and how
Speaker 1: you worry about losing sight of a core agenda. You
Speaker 1: write essentially that people need to remember about delivering for
Speaker 1: working class Americans. So are there risks to the American
Speaker 1: people not understanding the agenda that you're trying to deliver
Speaker 1: now that we're in the run up to the midterms.
Speaker 2: Of course, and part of my job is to explain
Speaker 2: exactly what we've inherited, which is a mess, how we're
Speaker 2: addressing it, and how long it's going to take to
Speaker 2: see the fruits of the Trump policies.
Speaker 3: The model here, how long do you think it's going
Speaker 3: to do well?
Speaker 2: The model here is the transition from Jimmy Carter in
Speaker 2: the seventies era of stagflation to the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Carter,
Speaker 2: much like Biden Harris, created a tremendous problem with both
Speaker 2: inflation and recession because of their policies. If you think
Speaker 2: about what Biden set us up for, it was a
Speaker 2: stagflationary scenario. So Carter did the same for Reagan. So
Speaker 2: Reagan comes in, does their deregulation, positive supply shock, does
Speaker 2: the tax cuts, positive supply shock, makes adjustments, stops doing
Speaker 2: stupid stuff like Carter did. But it takes time, and
Speaker 2: for Reagan the time ran out because by the time
Speaker 2: the midterms rolled around two years after he assumed office,
Speaker 2: it was a bloodbath and the Democrats won the House
Speaker 2: and basically paralyzed government. But the next six years were
Speaker 2: a beautiful thing because Reagan's policies took hold and we
Speaker 2: had one of the.
Speaker 3: Most prosperous times.
Speaker 2: Now we understand that history, and we're trying to make
Speaker 2: sure we don't get caught in that same vice. So
Speaker 2: what we have to do is explain very clearly to
Speaker 2: American people.
Speaker 3: Let me give you a two exam.
Speaker 1: Wait, I do want to ask you this this point
Speaker 1: about the timeframe, so work in progress. You need to
Speaker 1: convince Americans and work hard on that. Twenty twenty eight
Speaker 1: in that election, who would you trust to continue this agenda.
Speaker 3: It's not for me to say, and that's not that's
Speaker 3: not my job. You got JD.
Speaker 2: Vance's the vice president and Marco Rubio. That would be,
Speaker 2: for example, a great ticket.
Speaker 1: With who at the top of the ticket.
Speaker 2: JD would be there, But Marco's already said that if JD.
Speaker 3: Runs, he would wouldn't challenge you. I love these guys,
Speaker 3: these are.
Speaker 2: I always admired Marco back in twenty sixteen. I always
Speaker 2: thought he was like of the people on that stage,
Speaker 2: the sixteen Republicans. I always thought he was the sharpest
Speaker 2: tool in the shed besides Donald Trump. Right, he couldn't
Speaker 2: hold a candle to Trump with respect to everything. But
Speaker 2: he's he's he's really a very capable person. But I
Speaker 2: think you're on some here with the messaging because people
Speaker 2: on your side of the Atlantic are You're going to
Speaker 2: be watching that election for Congress very carefully because what
Speaker 2: happened in twenty eighteen because we lost the House. I
Speaker 2: write about that in my book. There were some mistakes
Speaker 2: made that I hope we don't make again. It became,
Speaker 2: let's say, a crap show. That's a little easier way
Speaker 2: of saying it, because the Democrats just started issuing subpoenas
Speaker 2: and impeachments and all that.
Speaker 3: But we don't want to repeat that. But here's what
Speaker 3: we're up against.
Speaker 2: It's like, we come in and we got egg prices
Speaker 2: off the charts, and we got beef prices off the charts.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's like that's terrible.
Speaker 2: It's like it's as American as you can't scramble eggs
Speaker 2: and hamburgers, right, So with eggs, we've been able to
Speaker 2: dramatically reduce the price of eggs almost immediately. How did
Speaker 2: we get there? This is really interesting how politics works here.
Speaker 2: It's like the Democrats come in and the chickens. They
Speaker 2: kill eighty million chickens. Literally, Joe Biden slaughters eighty million
Speaker 2: chickens because he overreacts to an avian flu thing. At
Speaker 2: the same time, with beef, he reduces grazing land because
Speaker 2: they're like, they want to eat soy birders.
Speaker 1: And questions about your policy, aren't they? You mentioned beef,
Speaker 1: And I'm conscious of the fact that President Trump reduced
Speaker 1: tariffs on beef, tomatoes, coffee, and bananas exactly because of
Speaker 1: the pressures on the household budgets of ordinary Americans. So
Speaker 1: that's an acknowledgment, isn't it that some of the actions
Speaker 1: the administration has taken, including on tariffs of which you
Speaker 1: are the architect, they have played a role in hurting
Speaker 1: ordinary Americans.
Speaker 2: I'm totally supportive of no tariffs on products we don't
Speaker 2: make here. We don't make coffee here, so it made
Speaker 2: no sense. It happened, and now we make adjustments. That's
Speaker 2: what we do. We may adjustments, but if you look
Speaker 2: at the economics of that or elasticities of supplying the man,
Speaker 2: it's like, we don't make coffee, right, so we don't
Speaker 2: make chocolate, so we lower the price on that. In
Speaker 2: the short run, we can we can import a little
Speaker 2: little beef. But we just had oil drop below sixty
Speaker 2: dollars a barrel, which is where it was when we
Speaker 2: left office the first term for Trump. Okay, Biden jacked
Speaker 2: that price up is about seventy five dollars. And so
Speaker 2: what that does is not only increases the cost of
Speaker 2: heating your home and driving your car. It increases the
Speaker 2: cost of fertilizer for crops, so food prices go up.
Speaker 2: It increases the cost of transportation for more.
Speaker 1: Manufacturing jobs have declined for seven straight months.
Speaker 3: Let's shift to that. Let's think about that. Okay, that's
Speaker 3: my job. I'm the senior counselor for trade man. Actually,
Speaker 3: how long do you think it's me? I can tell you.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that with exactitude. Okay, here's how
Speaker 3: it works.
Speaker 1: No, how long is it going to take for you
Speaker 1: to be well?
Speaker 2: Let me let me just work you through the quick math.
Speaker 2: For you to have a new factory in this country
Speaker 2: ready to produce things and therefore have new manufacturing jobs,
Speaker 2: that's about two to three years.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: What you see in the interim is this, We're having
Speaker 2: literally trillions of dollars of investment come in from abroad
Speaker 2: as well as domestically, which is, as we speak, beginning
Speaker 2: to design those factories and get ready to build them.
Speaker 2: Now what happens then you have a boom in construction jobs.
Speaker 2: That's the first phase of that. But you won't see
Speaker 2: any improvement in manufacturing right then. But then once you
Speaker 2: build the factories, that's when you see the manufacturing jobs.
Speaker 2: So home wasn't built in the day China took us
Speaker 2: to It's going on twenty five years now. Where they've
Speaker 2: taken us apart. It's not just the factories they took.
Speaker 2: They took our supply chains. And we can't like wave
Speaker 2: a magic wine, doesn't work like that.
Speaker 3: But if you simply.
Speaker 2: Look at the trajectory, it's going to be a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's going to be enough of a
Speaker 1: message to be saying to Americans in the run up
Speaker 1: to the midterm it's a work in progress. The Democrats
Speaker 1: left us a really bad inheritance. Don't you think you
Speaker 1: might have to do more?
Speaker 3: We are doing more. I can't I'm going to assure you.
Speaker 1: Let me give you one book preaching. What about what
Speaker 1: about increasing taxes on the wealthiest, like a forty percent tax, Right,
Speaker 1: that's something Steve Bannon, who you know well, is in
Speaker 1: favor of. Would you support it?
Speaker 3: I supported that back in the first terms.
Speaker 2: It's a debatable issue, but look, I always trust in
Speaker 2: the president and he's playing three dimensional chess and I
Speaker 2: it's like, you can have points of view, you win some,
Speaker 2: you lose some, but I always trust his judgment. Now,
Speaker 2: what you pulling that kind of out of left field?
Speaker 2: I think the thing that we have to do here
Speaker 2: in terms of the midterms is, first of all, explain
Speaker 2: to people exactly what we're doing across the different areas
Speaker 2: where we have problems with inflation, which is the housing,
Speaker 2: the healthcare costs, food energy, Those are the biggies, and
Speaker 2: we are as we speak, working twenty four hours a
Speaker 2: day on things we can do to make that better.
Speaker 1: You've got the Supreme Court case verdict coming up since
Speaker 1: which a lot of people are preparing for it to
Speaker 1: go against the government based on the comments that the
Speaker 1: Justice is, including John Roberts May during questioning what happens
Speaker 1: if the government loses the case? What does the plan be.
Speaker 3: Let's start with the case itself.
Speaker 2: The case is about whether you can use the emergency
Speaker 2: powers of the president to impose.
Speaker 1: Terrors, and it was your advice that he could. You
Speaker 1: you were clear that this was the way the i
Speaker 1: e e p A, this was the activity.
Speaker 2: If the Supreme Court wants to essentially ratify the president's
Speaker 2: use of terroiffs under i EPA, the law is on
Speaker 2: its side and our side, and the law is simply this.
Speaker 2: There's two salient points for your viewers. One is the
Speaker 2: question of whether a tariff is a tax, and in
Speaker 2: this context, in an emergency context, it's absolutely not.
Speaker 3: Os revenues are incidental.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: The other, the other issue is a language.
Speaker 2: Issue, is whether terriffs are legitimate form of import restraint,
Speaker 2: and of course they are. So the Supreme Court has
Speaker 2: has the ability now with respect to Plan B. Whatever
Speaker 2: Plan B is will not be as good as Plan A.
Speaker 2: So we have to recognize that this will be ex.
Speaker 1: Because doctor lots of companies will have to be compensated,
Speaker 1: won't they For time.
Speaker 3: Depends on what the discision. Let's not go there until
Speaker 3: we have to go there.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm very confident that we have a very
Speaker 2: very good chance. I mean, the laws on our side,
Speaker 2: the laws on our side here, So let's win that. Now,
Speaker 2: if we don't win, there's the whole alphabet number soup
Speaker 2: of things we've got. We've got the Section two thirty
Speaker 2: two's which which we are using aggressively already on things
Speaker 2: like steel and aluminum, on lumber, on critical minerals and pharmaceuticals.
Speaker 3: We have that.
Speaker 2: We have the three oh one section, which we used
Speaker 2: on China to impose tariffs, which we can.
Speaker 3: Do on any country in the world. It's cheating us.
Speaker 1: It is wrong. If this case goes against you, it
Speaker 1: will affect your standing, won't it in the White House?
Speaker 1: Because you were the one who was convinced that this
Speaker 1: route was the right one to go down with the
Speaker 1: bulk of tariff policy. Would you consider resigning if the
Speaker 1: case is lost?
Speaker 2: Of course, that's silly, I mean, and why I just like,
Speaker 2: I'm part of a trade team. We've got Scott Bessett
Speaker 2: as the Treasury Secretary, Howard Luttnik is the Commerce Secretary,
Speaker 2: Jamis Career as the United States Trade Representative, and myself
Speaker 2: with jd Vance Wayne In and the only person who
Speaker 2: matters as President Trump.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we.
Speaker 2: Are proceeding as the vision of how to go about
Speaker 2: this was crafted not by me, but by a group
Speaker 2: of people. We're doing exactly what we should be doing.
Speaker 2: We've anticipated contingencies, but we think that the most important
Speaker 2: thing to do now is focus on winning that case
Speaker 2: of the Supreme Court. That's where we're at. If we lose,
Speaker 2: then we have a plan B. It's not for me
Speaker 2: to talk about that to the world because I don't
Speaker 2: think we're going to lose, but if we do, we
Speaker 2: are certainly prepared.
Speaker 1: Imagine the refund bill, which Thomas saying could be as
Speaker 1: much as one hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2: I think you're basically making the case why what we've
Speaker 2: done is a very good thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, think about it.
Speaker 2: We inherited from the Democrats who spent money, as we say,
Speaker 2: on this side of the pond, like drunken sailors. Okay,
Speaker 2: just totally fiscally irresponsibile, like crazy stuff. And we were
Speaker 2: looking when we got into office at a fiscal cliff
Speaker 2: that was going to crush us with higher interest rates,
Speaker 2: inability to financy it, and and this tariff revenue, if
Speaker 2: you just cost it out, is the difference between a
Speaker 2: day injurious deficit and a healthy pay down in our debt.
Speaker 1: We're coming towards towards the end of the conversation. And
Speaker 1: I quite often ask people what they do at the weekends,
Speaker 1: and I'm conscious, like, what are your weekends like work?
Speaker 2: When you look, it's like when you're working for the
Speaker 2: White House, it's like being at sea or being on
Speaker 2: deployment for the military.
Speaker 3: You're working every day.
Speaker 2: And I know better than most because I remember the
Speaker 2: last day from the first term and it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, you're living in Wow.
Speaker 3: There was some stuff we.
Speaker 2: Left on the table we could have should have got done,
Speaker 2: and we didn't. And I try to tell people who there,
Speaker 2: it's like, look, the clock's ticking and we got a
Speaker 2: lot of work to do for the American people. Spend
Speaker 2: as much time as you can without it influencing or
Speaker 2: harming your family time.
Speaker 3: But this job is not a job. It's not a job.
Speaker 3: It's a mission. I mean, there's no I mean, it's like,
Speaker 3: if this were just a job.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be doing it because I'm I'm at the
Speaker 2: retirement age and I could just as easily be working
Speaker 2: on my next book or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the White House team are in glossy photo shoots.
Speaker 1: It's for Vanity Fair.
Speaker 3: You know that funny you mentioned that.
Speaker 2: Go to that Vanity Fair article and look at everybody
Speaker 2: they took a picture of, and every one of those
Speaker 2: persons and pictures looks demonic, demonic in those pictures. They
Speaker 2: frame those pictures in a way to have you hate
Speaker 2: those people, and that's despicable. That Vanity Fair thing is
Speaker 2: a very sophisticated form of propaganda. It's basically the triumph
Speaker 2: of fear over fact. And the guy who wrote it,
Speaker 2: Chris Whipple, Shame on him. He was once a fairly
Speaker 2: good offe. He's turned into a Trump arrangement syndrome guy.
Speaker 1: And it's just quotes are on the record and they're
Speaker 1: all on it.
Speaker 3: Well, I would challenge that as well.
Speaker 2: Just go look at those pictures. I mean, Caroline Leavitt,
Speaker 2: the way they did, it's like they went in and
Speaker 2: airbrushed that thing in a way, which I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just it's brutal what they do.
Speaker 1: Is that really what you're taking away from what I
Speaker 1: was putting to you is that they're taking the time
Speaker 1: to be in a vanity photo shoot. You're talking about
Speaker 1: mission and you weren't in that photo.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Like every one of those people in that article works
Speaker 2: twice as much as anybody you know. Okay, they're they're
Speaker 2: working NonStop and the pressure is hard. I mean, stuff
Speaker 2: happens like on any given day. Stuff happens that you
Speaker 2: got to figure out. You got to be quick on
Speaker 2: your feet, you got to be able to do the
Speaker 2: right thing. And I'm just saying that that Vanity Fair article,
Speaker 2: it's just a study in propaganda.
Speaker 1: Betanavarro, thank you very much for talking to us.
Speaker 3: A pleasure.
Speaker 1: That's the Michelle Hussein Show for this week. You'll find
Speaker 1: our email in the show notes, so please do write
Speaker 1: to us or leave us a comment, and don't forget.
Speaker 1: These conversations are also in video as well as illustrated
Speaker 1: versions with my notes at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Weekend
Speaker 1: and so to the team producers Jessica Beck and Chris Martlieu.
Speaker 1: Video editing is by Andy Hayward and Megan Olsen, and
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Speaker 1: The music is by Bart Walshaw, and the executive producer
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Speaker 1: Editorial director of Audio and Special Projects, and our executive
Speaker 1: editor is Catherine Bell. This week, we'd also like to
Speaker 1: thank matt Shirley, Brendan Palmer, Joe Mattiere, and the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Podcast team. Until next time, goodbye,