Ex-Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein ripped into President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs blitz during a blistering appearance on Morning Joe Wednesday, branding the policy “some of the worst diplomacy I’ve ever seen” and likening it to “burning down the house.”
The scathing remarks came after Trump’s latest tariff barrage — including a staggering 104% levy on Chinese imports — sent global markets into a tailspin. The move has jolted investor confidence, shaved an estimated $6 trillion off global wealth, and reignited fears of a full-blown trade war with China, which in turn retaliated with a further 84% tariff against the U.S. on Wednesday.
Bernstein’s ruthless takedown began as soon as Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski introduced him, asking about the “potential consequences” of the policy. The economist said:
We’re seeing the consequences. Thank you for having me on. We’re seeing the consequences in real time. About $6 trillion of wealth has evaporated in the past few days. By the way, our total trade imbalance with all countries is a little bit north of $1 trillion. So we’re kind of burning down the house here versus, you know, taking out the garbage. So the consequences have been real.The disruptions to global trade have been obvious. We have a banner headline in the New York Times this morning… Now when I was in the Biden administration, we put 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles,
and the idea there was to keep them out of the country. Last year, we imported $440 billion of imports from China. It is not at all economically realistic to think about keeping them all out of this country.
Continuing, prompted by the host’s follow-up question about China’s response and Trump’s assumption the country will “cave,” Bernstein protested that the president had completely misunderstood the trade dynamic with Beijing.
Well, first of all, let me say that China does engage in some unfair trade, but it’s exactly the opposite of what we just heard the president say. He suggested that they are charging prices that are double what they should, and that’s how they’re ripping us off. In fact, the China play is much different than that. It’s exporting overcapacity to us and capturing market share by selling under cost. So it’s the opposite of what the president said and that unfair trade should be addressed.We certainly tried to do so in the Biden administration. But I don’t believe that what he’s talking about now is going to work at all. When the Chinese say, we’ll fight to the end. That’s a quote from beijing. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what the end is. It sounds terrible. There was some suggestion of negotiations overnight, and I suspect
we’ll see more of that. But what a terrible way to go about this. This is some of the worst diplomacy I’ve ever seen, and absolutely the worst economics I’ve seen in international trade in a long career.
Asked by the host if there was any “positive spin” on the whole situation, the economist offered a brutal response:
I have not been able to find anyone who isn’t paid to believe that this stuff can work who doesn’t share the view that I have. So it is an extremely common and pervasive view.You know, a lot of us looked at this formula that they cooked up, which is kind of nonsense divided by two in order to come up with this and I literally haven’t seen one economist who’s not paid to believe otherwise to endorse that.
Watch above via MSNBC.