The Trump administration’s tariff policy poses a risk for Republicans come midterms, former Vice President Mike Pence told The Hill in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
“I really believe that when people voted to send President [Donald] Trump back to the White House, what I heard traveling across the country in the last four years was people wanted to see us get back to the policies of the Trump-Pence administration,” Pence said.
“My sense is that in addition to values — respect for the right to life, respect for traditional family values — I think that’s what people voted for. I don’t think, in my heart of hearts, I don’t think the American people were voting for what would amount to the largest peacetime tax hike in American history — which the tariffs that were announced last week, if left in place, would certainly be — and the hardship they’d place on working families and businesses large and small.”
Pence spoke to the publication minutes after Trump announced a 125% tariff on China. The former vice president said he was supportive of the United States’ aggressive posture toward China and “grateful” the president granted a 90-day window on reciprocal tariffs for U.S. allies that could be lowered to a baseline of 10%.
“I have every confidence that our allies are going to come to the table,” Pence said. “They’re going to sit down, they’re going to negotiate. But removing the tariffs that were imposed across the wider world to many of our most important trading partners and allies, to see that pause for 90 days, I think my family and millions of American families are breathing a sigh of relief today.”
Pence went on to say the tariffs would be harmful for working families.
“I know the president better than his most ardent defenders … I know in the president’s mind that he sees tariffs as a way of exacting a cost of having access to our economy. But the reality is that tariffs are paid by American companies importing goods from around the world so that then the cost of which is passed on to American consumers.”
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