US President Donald Trump on Monday announced plans to impose tariffs on the countries that “harm” American interests, specifically naming China, India, and Brazil as major offenders.
Speaking to House Republicans at a retreat in Florida, his first since beginning of second presidential term, Trump pointed out “America First” economic agenda.
“We’re going to put tariffs on countries and entities that mean harm to us. They want to strengthen their nations at our expense, but we won’t let that happen anymore,” Trump said.
Trump targeted nations like China, India, and Brazil for implementing what he called unfair tariffs against the United States.
“Look at what others do. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so many other countries. So we’re not going to let that happen any longer because we’re going to put America first,” he said.
He outlined plans to establish a “very fair system where money is going to come into our coffers and America is going to be very rich again”, adding that it will happen “very quickly”.
US president also urged foreign companies to establish manufacturing plants in the US to avoid high tariffs. “If you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs, you have to build your plant right here in America. That’s what’s going to happen at record levels. We’re going to have more plants built in the next short period of time than anybody ever envisioned before because the incentive is going to be there because they have no tariff whatsoever.”
To support this initiative, Trump pledged to assist companies setting up operations in critical industries such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and steel.
The president also announced new tariffs on steel, aluminium, copper, and other materials essential for US military production, citing the need to restore domestic manufacturing capabilities.
“There was a time when we built one ship a day, and now we can’t even build one. That’s going to change,” he said. Trump also highlighted plans to expand the mining of rare earth minerals in the US, blaming environmental regulations for hindering their development.
“We have some of the best rare earth minerals in the world, but environmentalists got there first. We’re going to free that up,” the US president said.
Trump reiterated his commitment to lowering taxes for American workers and businesses as tariffs on foreign nations increase. “Under the American first economic model, as tariffs on other countries go up, taxes on American workers and businesses will come down and massive numbers of jobs and factories will come home,” he said.
The president reaffirmed his vision to restore America’s economic dominance, saying, “It’s time to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before.”
Earlier, Trump also hinted at imposing “100 percent tariffs” on the Brics bloc, including India, in a bid to counter what he called unfair practices from the group of emerging economies.
