CNN Host Loses It Over Trump’s ‘Economic Nonsense’ – ‘Where Does He Think These Billions Are Coming From?!’
President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on all imports on Wednesday in a move that will almost certainly result in markedly higher prices.
Effective 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, all imports into the U.S. will be hit with a baseline 10% tariff, but goods from dozens of countries will be hit with even higher tariffs. For example, goods from the European Union will be hit at a rate of 20%, Vietnam at 46%, and Japan at 24%. All imported automobiles will be subject to a 25% tariff, regardless of origin.
CNN International host Richard Quest joined Wednesday’s CNN NewsNight to weigh in on Trump’s Rose Garden event announcing the move.
“There are a lot of things that were said today, but the idea of slapping – willy nilly it seems – tariffs on basically the entire world will do what for the economy?” host Abby Phillip asked.
Quest did not hold back:
It will send it into reverse. Let there be no doubt about this. The president said today a whole load of economic nonsense, things that we know simply will not happen. He talks about it being great for the economy and it’s going to boost growth. It will not!
Look I’ve studied this a million ways upside down. And many of the people in that Rose Garden know it! The president conveniently forgot about the Payne-Aldrich Act of 1910. He ignored the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1930. He went straight through Smoot-Hawley. And then he gets to this nirvana where billions of dollars are gonna come in. Where does he think these billions are coming from?!
They’re coming from importers. Importers will pay because they get something known as a customs schedule when the goods come off the boat. And that is an invoice. And the importer pays, and the importer passes it to the wholesaler. The wholesaler passes it to the distributor. The distributor – get your wallet out – passes it to you.
Trump has long maintained that tariffs are paid by the countries exporting the goods. However, they are paid by the businesses importing the products.
During the announcement, Trump held up a table showing that dozens of countries had imposed massive tariffs on U.S. goods. But it turns out those numbers are utterly fake.
For example, the chart indicated the E.U. has a 39% “tariff” on U.S. goods. This number was seemingly arrived at by taking the $235.6 billion trade deficit the U.S. had with the E.U. in 2024 and dividing that number by the total value of imports from that bloc. This yields 0.39, which the administration cited to falsely claim that the E.U. has a 39% tariff on U.S. goods.
Watch above via CNN.
