CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Confronts Trump Trade Honcho Over Tariff Cave: ‘Was It Worth the Pain?’
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pressed U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on President Donald Trump’s agreement to lower tariffs with China “without concessions,” asking if the trade war was “worth the pain” it caused.
Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that the U.S. and China have agreed to a 90-day truce, dropping tariffs Chinese tariffs against the U.S. to 10 percent and U.S. tariffs against China to 30 percent. The agreement comes after weeks of chaos that have roiled the economy and stock markets.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins asked Greer if it was all worth it, and what his message is to Americans who will pay thousands more per year for goods as a result of the fallout:
KAITLAN COLLINS: American businesses, American consumers, have been looking at this trade war with China in particular, and asking what it means for them in their bottom line. And if there were no major concessions made in Geneva by the Chinese officials, some businesses may ask, Was this last month worth the pain that it caused?
GREER: So again, Kaitlan, I would just point out, it’s the Chinese that really caused this pain. Every other country in the world, and we imposed tariffs, understood we’re trying to deal with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, the largest in human history that we inherited from the Biden administration. It was only China that decided to escalate. And therefore, we had to escalate as well.
And now we got to a position with the Chinese where we understand each other much better. They understand our problem, we understand their views. So we can get back to the normal program we’re having with these other countries who are negotiating with us, which is to have a 10 percent baseline with the possibility of the tariffs going back up if we don’t reach an agreement. So now, they’re just coming into the fold with the rest of the countries.
COLLINS: So if there is no agreement in the next 90 days, should American businesses and consumers expect those tariffs to go back to where they were, before your talks in Geneva?
GREER: Well, that’s certainly a possibility.
The reality is, doing business in China, or being so reliant on China for imports, has become a much higher risk option for businesses over the past six, seven, eight years. This is not — this is not a new thing, where trade relations between China and the U.S. are so fraught. President Trump imposed tariffs. President Biden kept them in place. President Trump has escalated them again, to deal with issues.
So, I think any serious businessperson who’s doing business in China has to calculate whether it’s worth the uncertainty of doing business there, or finding another source, or just bringing it back here.
COLLINS: Yes. We’re here in Riyadh. I was watching CNN International earlier. There was a businessman from New Jersey who was on, who was saying, this is making them rethink their relationship with China in terms of producing their products.
But in terms of what this means for American families, right now. Because, bottom line, there are a lot of consumers who buy a lot from China. Even after accounting for this breakthrough over the weekend, the President’s tariffs are still going to lift prices by about 2 percent in the short run. And one analysis says that is going to cost the average middle-class household over $2,200 per year.
What do you say to families who are worried about this squeezing their budget?
GREER: Well, I would say that in the first term, the President imposed substantial tariffs on China, and inflation actually went down during that same period. So when I see these projections from the same people, back then, who projected inflation and we didn’t have it? Folks who project it now? I’m going to wait and see on that.
We’ve also — we also had a very strong jobs report. We really haven’t seen inflation going up. Obviously, it’s something we watch. But we have these structural issues in our relationship with China and, frankly, with other countries, and we need to address them, or else it will only get worse.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
