‘Huge Mistake’: John Curley explains the problems with Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs

President Donald Trump doubled down on his tariff strategy on April 2, a date being coined as ‘Liberation Day,’ with new tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners in an effort to dismantle the country’s income tax and to make America “good and wealthy again.”

Among the newly announced tariffs is a 34% tax on imports from China and a 20% tax on the European Union. Critics of this plan are concerned this could spiral into a series of trade wars as it might have sprawling ramifications on the global economy.

“OK, a tariff is a tax, and it’s paid for by the people that are buying the stuff. What he wants to try to do is bring domestic production back to the U.S., yeah?” John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, said. “In 1980, 19 million workers in the U.S. worked in plants producing stuff. Now, it’s down to 13 million. Does that mean we’re not producing stuff anymore because we’ve lost those people? No, we actually have improved, and we actually have more industry. What we’ve done is we have been able to automate. Now, that’s unfortunate for the people that have been replaced by the computer or the machine, but we’re more effective and more efficient because of our technology. So yes, the big plant that used to employ 30,000 guys is down to 6,000 people because robots are doing the work. That’s just how it works.”

John Curley says he’s not buying Trump tariff arguments

Trump claimed this will bring in hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenue after stating the U.S. “has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered” by other nations through the global trade system. His administration levied the tariffs after declaring a national economic emergency.

“Example, the toaster. So the toaster costs $30 and it comes from South Korea,” Curley said. “Rather than doing that, we’re going to put a tariff on the toaster of $3, so now the toaster costs $33. The American citizen goes into Home Depot, and there’s the South Korean toaster for $33, but then he goes, ‘Look, there’s an American-made toaster for $32. I’ll buy the American-made toaster, and I’ll save $1. Well, first of all, that’s complete nonsense because you’re never going to get a toaster made for $32 because there’s no way to produce the toaster in America. And toasters are not suddenly going to be made in America rather than over in South Korea because the cost in order to be able to get all of that going will simply be impossible in the amount of time that he wants to get this thing done.”

“Is this a massive mistake?” Joe Wallace, the producer of “The John Curley Show,” asked.

“Huge mistake, gigantic,” Curley answered. “Because some of these tariffs aren’t going in place until the 10th of April, maybe somebody responds and maybe this is a way of just getting them to cave and bring down the price. And then he can say, ‘Hey, look at this. We brought the price down on these things.’ That’s fine. Good, but this idea that suddenly the tariffs are going to be paid, the government’s going to make so much money on all these tariffs, and then we don’t have to pay any income tax, nonsense. There’s no way you could possibly have enough money to run the country that way.”

Listen to the full conversation below.

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