'America will pay dearly for this stupid move': Senator rips Trump over voter 'betrayal'
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) ripped into President Donald Trump for imposing sweeping tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China that he claimed will cost American taxpayers dearly.
On MSNBC's Velshi Sunday, Van Hollen used the example of the billions of dollars Trump handed out to subsidize soy bean farmers hurting from his first term tariff actions.
"What happened was when Trump, in his first term, imposed those tariffs on some Chinese products, the reality was China's retaliatory tariffs prevented a lot of u.s. exports from from being — and we paid, the federal government, the federal taxpayer, the American people — ended up paying tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to big farmers. So, at the end of the day, it's the American taxpayer and American people who are going to pay and pay dearly for this stupid move," Van Hollen said.
The senator said Trump's strategy with this round of tariffs wasn't readily apparent.
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"I mean, take Canada for example. It's just not clear what the president's endgame is with Canada; there's not an immigration issue. There's not a big fentanyl issue with respect to Canada. So, the president is just using these so-called emergency powers to levy tariffs, but the price will be paid by the American people, and without a strategy behind it, this is just folly."
Van Hollen continued, "I'm in favor of strategic, targeted tariffs, right, to protect key sectors: semiconductors, steel. I mean, these are important sectors. But across-the-board tariffs are simply a tax hike on the American people. And they're going to be feeling it pretty soon because, you know, Trump promised exactly the opposite,"
"This is also a prelude to a big tax break that the president is planning for the wealthiest people. So, I can tell you, Elon Musk doesn't — he's not going to feel the impact of the price increases from these tariffs. And then he's going to get a huge tax break windfall. So, yeah, this is a betrayal of all the people that President Trump said he wanted to help."
Watch the clip above via MSNBC or at the link.