U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Montgomery) is defending President Trump’s new tariffs policy, arguing the president is keeping his campaign promise to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
Last week, Trump announced new tariffs on most of America’s trading partners and declared that foreign trade and economic practices have created a national emergency.
“This is exactly what President Trump ran on,” Britt said Friday on WVNN.
“He did not hide from this. There is no shock in what is occurring. He absolutely said, ‘We are going to level the playing field for American workers.’ If you look back over the last 40 years, I mean, it is clear that we have put American workers and wages at a deficit and allowed the world to take advantage of hard working people here in our country.”
Trump has not backed down from any of the tariffs and threatened to veto a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate last week that would require congressional approval of any tariffs imposed by a president.
Britt believes the tariffs are about forcing other countries to make better trade deals with the U.S.
“So I think we will see all of this play out in the weeks to come,” she said. “As you know, President Trump is a deal maker, so he is ready. He is clearly setting the table. People have already come to the table significantly trying to say, ‘Okay, hey, we get it. We get it, and we know we’ve got to make this right.’ And I am hopeful we’ll see more of that in days to come.”
Britt also criticized the reaction of Trump’s agenda by some in the mainstream media.
“I’m so disappointed, but not surprised at the way that the mainstream media is handling literally every single thing that Donald Trump does,” she said. “They are projecting their hate for Donald Trump into every single sentence on their page. I think you block out the noise and you think about, how do we actually create opportunity for American workers? And I think that’s what President Trump will do.”
Despite some of the recent downturns in the stock market, Britt said she’s “excited” about what Trump’s plan will do to help the economy.
“In what world is that fair that American consumers have to pay more for goods so that we can push more money into the Chinese economy? No, thank you. And so I think he is saying, ‘Enough is enough. I believe in the workers of our great country, and I believe they deserve a fair wage, a great wage and great opportunity.’ And that’s what he is creating.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
