Trump Confronted On ‘Tariffs Are Taxes’ Quote — Admits Americans ‘Pay Something’ But Gain Not Dying In War

President Donald Trump went on a stunning riff when confronted with the declaration — by Chief Justice John Roberts — that “tariffs are taxes,” admitting Americans “pay something” but claiming they benefit by not having to fight in wars that he says the duties prevented.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case challenging Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs based on the invocation of emergency powers. Things did not appear to go well, as Trump Solicitor General John Sauer faced a blizzard of skeptical questions — even from the Trump picks on the court.

But it was the conservative chief who made news when he bluntly declared that Trump’s tariffs are “taxes on Americans.”

When confronted with that quote in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon, Trump delivered a marathon weave in which he melded the admission that Americans do bear the costs with the claim that without the policy, Americans were destined to fight in places like Cambodia and Thailand:

HUFFINGTON POST SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT SV DÁTE: Yesterday, in the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roberts said that tariffs are taxes and that they’re paid by Americans. He said this pretty clearly, and yet you’re saying that this money is rolling in from other countries. How do you square those two?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, it is. It’s coming in because they’ve charged us. You know, the same countries that you talk about are charging us massive amounts of money. If you look at the tariffs over the years that were put… On our heads.

We — there’s a reason we’re $38 trillion owed. Now that money is going to start coming down. But we had presidents that didn’t know how to use tariffs. We had presidents who had no understanding of business.

But if you take a look at what’s happened to us, every country charges tariffs. China, the European Union was brutal. They charged us tariffs — not only tariffs, they charged us tariff — so we couldn’t sell cars there. We couldn’t sell our product.

They didn’t want our agriculture. They didn’t want our cars. Now they’re taking our cars and now they are taking our agriculture. You know, far more than money.

It really is a defensive mechanism. If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be unable to defend ourselves.

HUFFINGTON POST SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT SV DÁTE: So then do you agree then that Americans are paying those tariffs?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think, no, I don’t agree. I think that they might be paying something, but when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously. .

They’re gaining through national security. Look, I’m ending war because of these tariffs. Americans would have to fight in some of these wars.

They are gaining in national security. They’re gaining in economics. They’re gaining in so many different ways.

And they gaining in self-respect for our own country. Other countries used to laugh at us.

Watch above via Fox News.

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