Trump took his trade rhetoric to new heights in a series of events this week, doubling down on up to 200% tariffs on autos from Mexico and even raising the possibility of targeting specific companies if they try to move their manufacturing outside of the US.
“The word tariff, properly used, is a beautiful word,” Trump said in a speech in Savannah, Ga., where he offered some new details on his plan for blanket tariffs.
And it was just the latest event where Trump seemed to raise the rhetorical stakes this week if he wins.
On Monday, he promised a 200% tariff on John Deere’s (DE) imports if the company moves to Mexico. He has previously discussed such a tariff on automobiles from Mexico, but he extended the threat this week to a particular company in particular — saying it would apply to “everything that you want to sell into the United States.”
In Tuesday’s speech, Trump also mentioned by name companies like GE and IBM (IBM) that have moved some operations overseas in recent years. He says his moves would lead them to “come sprinting back to our shores.”
Also this week, the GOP nominee reiterated his desire to move unilaterally, saying “I don’t need Congress, but they’ll approve it. I’ll have the right to impose them myself, if they don’t.”
It’s a series of plans that the Kamala Harris campaign has said could lead to a recession and billionaire investor Mark Cuban called “ridiculously bad and destructive” earlier on Tuesday. A wide-spectrum of economists also have been critical and said these duties could raise prices and spur new inflation.
Tuesday’s speech by Trump also featured an extended discussion of his plan to slash the corporate tax rate to 15%, calling it the “centerpiece” of his plan to entice foreign companies to bring manufacturing into the US.
“Under my leadership, we are going to take other countries’ jobs, we are going to take their factories,” Trump promised, suggesting a combination of carrots (like a lower tax rate and regulation) alongside sticks (his tariffs) would change companies’ manufacturing plans.
A promise of a intense trade focus
But the topic Trump returned to again and again was trade.
Trump reiterated his plans for tariffs on autos in Tuesday’s speech, promising tariffs either at 100% or 200% levels for autos coming across the Mexican border while promising “we’re going to be making autos at a level you’ve never seen before.”
“This is the policy that built American and this is policy that will save America,” Trump added on Tuesday.
Throughout the campaign, the former president has promised to levy duties of 10% to 20% on US trading partners and 60% on China if he is returned to the Oval Office.
Trump aides have also explored new avenues in recent years to help a re-elected Trump implement tariffs more quickly and perhaps at higher levels than in his first term, indeed without input from Congress.
“There certainly is a lot of current law that permits tariffs to be put in place in various circumstances,” former Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer recently said of Trump’s possible options.
Lighthizer and other Trump allies have publicly discussed different laws to get his tariffs done quickly and at higher levels than his previous term if he wins.
One previously unutilized option is a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows the president to declare an economic emergency and act accordingly.
The Harris campaign response: ‘lunacy’
This latest move from Trump came after the Harris campaign continued to hammer the GOP over the subject and drive its message that Trump’s tariffs plans would be akin to a nearly $4,000 “national sales tax.”
The campaign released a new letter Tuesday from more than 400 mostly left-leaning economists who focused on the tariffs. writing that “Donald Trump’s proposed policies risk reigniting inflation and threaten the United States’ global standing and domestic economic stability.”
Cuban, in a call with reporters where he slammed Trump’s recent comments on John Deere, said of the candidate’s approach in general that “he doesn’t think these things through.”
Cuban added he wasn’t opposed to some strategic duties but “where it turns into lunacy is where you do across the board tariffs.”
Cuban also spoke on the corporate tax rate Tuesday. He said you need to look at the corporate tax rate in the context of tariffs, arguing that Trump’s tariffs would mean a bigger hit to importers than gaons from Trump’s plan to lower the corporate tax rate to 15%.
The back and forth also came as the White House continued to put forth strategic protectionism from a proposed ban on Chinese connected-car technology ahead of Friday when an aggressive new set of previously announced tariffs levied against China-made industrial products are set to go into effect.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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