Donald Trump says US seeks 'fairness' on tariffs, not leverage
President Donald Trump claims his tariff policy will reduce debt and result in billions of dollars pouring into the US economy
US President Donald Trump has said that his country was not seeking “leverage” while negotiating tariff rates with other countries, but was looking for fairness and reciprocity.
‘Focus on reciprocity’
Speaking to reporters on Sunday night local time in Pennsylvania, Trump also said that he wanted to make tariffs as reciprocal as possible, adding that it might be too much to handle for some countries, as it would be a much bigger number.
“I am not looking for leverage. I am looking for fairness. Make it reciprocal as much as possible. Sometimes reciprocal will be too much for them to handle because it would be a much bigger number. But we want to see reciprocity. Want to see reciprocal wherever we can,” he said.
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‘Billions of dollars pouring in’
Claiming that his move to impose reciprocal tariffs on trading partners has resulted in financial gain for the US, Trump said that hundreds of billions of dollars were now pouring into the US, and there could be a distribution of dividends among the middle-income or low-income people.
“All I can say is our country will be taking in billions of dollars. The world treated us in a very unfair way. We are going to pay down debt. We have got a lot of money coming in, much more money than the country has ever seen, by hundreds of billions of dollars, and there could be a distribution of dividends to the people of our country. I would say that would be for middle-income people or low-income people,” said Trump.
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‘Will reduce debt’
Trump also said that his administration would be reducing debt as hundreds of billions of dollars are pouring into the US now. He also said that the US should have done this many years ago.
“I did it in my first term with China, but we did not get to the rest because Covid hit and we could not go to France, Spain and Italy. China was paying us hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. Then Biden screwed it all up. He screwed up everything he touched,” added Trump.
The development comes days after the US President slapped a 25 per cent tariff on all goods from India and an unspecified penalty for India’s purchase of crude oil and defence equipment from Russia.