-The president is ratcheting up his trade war with China
and lying about what it means
for American companies and consumers.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
When it comes to foreign policy,
there are two things we know about Donald Trump.
He wants to be liked by everyone
and he has no idea what he's talking about.
That's why his description of how he would conduct himself
in office was always so incoherent.
During the campaign, for example,
Trump insisted both that as a businessman,
he could have good relationships with everybody
and also that, as a nation, we should be unpredictable.
-As a businessman, I get along with everybody.
I have business all over the world.
We must, as a nation, be more unpredictable.
We are totally predictable.
We have to be unpredictable.
-No. You can't get along with everybody
and also be unpredictable.
Nobody likes their unpredictable friend.
Trump's like guy who won't respond to texts
when you ask him for a ride to the airport,
but then he shows up at your door at 3:00 a.m.
with a handle of vodka and a duffel bag.
And when you say, "Go home," he's like,
[ As Trump ] "I can't. I got stoned and sold my apartment."
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Now we're seeing what
Trump's unpredictability looks like
when it comes to imposing tariffs on China.
China retaliated this week with tariffs
and the escalating trade wars hurt farmers
and sent the stock market plummeting.
And yet, Trump has repeatedly shrugged it off,
claiming our economy is strong enough to handle a trade war
and insisting it's not that big of a deal.
-So the economy is doing very well by every measure.
We are having probably the greatest economy
that we have had anywhere,
anytime in the history of our country.
We are having a little squabble with China
because we have been treated very unfairly
for many, many decades.
-A little squabble is not how you describe
a trade war with the world's second largest economy.
That's language your dad uses when he explains
why he's been sleeping in a motel for the past few weeks.
"Your mom and I are having a little squabble
over a photo of daddy at a big boys' party
with a lady who popped out of a cake.
[ Laughter ]
It's a squabble. It'll be over soon."
Even some Democrats have been in favor of using tariffs
as a temporary tool to get a long-term deal with China
that helps American workers.
But one of those Democrats, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown,
expressed concern that Trump was using the tariffs
as a permanent solution.
-I am very concerned that the president
has not understood that tariffs
need to be a short-term tool to get to a long-term policy.
He seems to think the tariffs are the policy.
-Yeah. Tariffs are supposed to be a temporary punishment,
not a permanent solution.
It's like if your kid doesn't do their chores,
you send them to their room for an hour.
You don't make them live there for 30 years.
That's probably why these two
looks like they have never seen the daylight.
[ Laughter ]
And then... [ Cheers and applause ]
-...there are the Republicans
who have traditionally opposed tariffs
and supported free trade.
Suddenly those Republicans have gone very quiet.
And even when they express mild concern to Trump,
their message doesn't seem to get through,
like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley
who represents a lot of farmers hurt by Trump's tariffs.
Grassley told "The Washington Post" yesterday
that he planned to write a letter to Trump
to explain the concerns of farmers
because he felt the argument he had repeatedly made
to the president in person was not registering.
I'm not sure if you talk to him face to face
he hears everything you say.
And I do believe he doesn't hear everything face to face.
I mean, have you ever seen the way he looks in a meeting
when someone else is talking?
He hates it so much, he literally hugs himself
as a calming mechanism.
[ As Trump ] Don't worry, Donald.
The bad man will be done soon,
and then it will be your turn to make noise with your mouth.
[ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Normal voice ] So now Trump has us mired
in a damaging trade war
with the world's second largest economy
that's pissing off both parties and has no end in sight.
But as usual, he keeps insisting
that even though he and the president of China
are fighting, they still get along great.
-The relationship I have with President Xi is extraordinary.
It's really very good,
but he's for China, and I'm for the USA.
-And honestly, I'm just relieved he knows what side he's on.
Trump's like a kid in a youth soccer game
who gets confused about what team he's on
and kicks it into the wrong goal
and Republicans are like the helicopter parents
on the sideline who cheer for him anyway.
"Yes, Bradley, you choose whatever goal
you feel comfortable with!"
But you've got to give it to Trump.
You've got to give it to Trump.
He might not know how tariffs work,
but he definitely knows which country he is the president of.
-President Xi, he's a friend of mine.
And I'm a friend of his and I like him a lot,
but he's representing China,
and I'm representing the United States of America.
President Xi is for China. And I'm for the United States.
He's representing China, and I'm representing the United States.
He represents China. I represent the USA.
He likes China, and I like the United States.
He's for China. I'm for us.
President Xi, he's a friend of mine,
but he likes China.
I like the USA.
-We all know that!
This is like if Steph Curry held a post-game press conference
and just went, "I play for the Warriors.
James Harden plays for the Rockets. Goodbye."
[ Laughter ]
Now tariffs are basically --
basically tariffs are a tax on imports from that country.
So the American companies importing those goods
pay the tax, and they often end up passing that tax
on to consumers, and yet Trump keeps repeating the lie
that China will pay the tariffs
rather than American companies and consumers.
He did it again last week while simultaneously claiming
once again that he has a great relationship
with the president of China.
-We were getting very close to a deal.
Then they started to renegotiate the deal.
We can't have that. We can't have that.
So our country can take in $120 billion a year in tariffs
paid for mostly by China, by the way, not by us.
A lot of people try and steer it in a different direction.
Ultimately, it's paid for largely by China.
-Do you have plans to talk to President Xi, or no, not yet?
-Well, he just wrote me a beautiful letter.
I just received it, and I'll probably speak to him by phone.
-Okay. First of all, you'll probably speak to him by phone?
If someone sends you a beautiful letter,
you call them.
That is just basic etiquette.
One time, my grandma sent me a birthday card.
I didn't call her right away, and later that day,
I got another card slipped under my door that said,
"No phone call?"
And she included a bill for the $5.
Second, Trump has the weird thing
where he's obsessed with getting beautiful letters from people.
He said it multiple times about everyone
from Kim Jong-un to Vladimir Putin
to the former Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, and even President Obama
shortly after he took office.
-"James Clapper, who famously got caught lying to Congress,
is now an authority on Donald Trump.
Will he show you his beautiful letter to me?"
-Putin even sent me a present,
a beautiful present with a beautiful note.
-A letter was given to me by Kim Jong-un,
and that letter was a very nice letter.
Oh, would you like to see what was in that letter.
-I just showed a letter that I received just yesterday
from Chairman Kim which is an extraordinary letter.
-I just went to the oval office
and found this beautiful letter from President Obama.
-This was the letter
given to me by President Obama.
It was long. It was complex.
It was thoughtful.
-[ As Trump ] And I didn't understand a word of it.
[ Laughter ]
I just know...
[ Cheers and applause ]
I just know it was...
It was shaped like this.
[ Normal voice ] His obsession with letters
makes him sound like a Civil War wife.
[ Older Southern accent ] I just got the most beautiful letter
from Beauregard.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Also, why is Trump
always carrying these letters around?
Is that why his coat's always so bulky?
He's just packed full of mail everywhere he goes?
Terrible president, but he'd make a great mailman.
I can totally see him -- shorts, high socks,
tugging around a mail sack.
[ Cheers and applause ]
But the important part of that clip
is the part where Trump claimed that China
and not the U.S. companies would pay the tariff.
It's a lie he's been repeating for years.
And on Sunday, Fox host Chris Wallace
got Trump's chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow,
to admit that it was a lie.
-It's not China that pays tariffs.
It's the American importers,
the American companies that pay what, in effect,
is a tax increase,
and oftentimes, passes it on to U.S. consumers.
-Fair enough. In fact, both sides will pay.
Both sides will pay in these things, and, of course --
-If it's a tariff on goods coming into the country,
the Chinese aren't paying.
-No. But the Chinese will suffer GDP losses
and so forth with respect to a diminishing export market
and goods that they may need for their own --
-I understand that, but the president says
China pays for the tariffs.
They may suffer consequences,
but it's U.S. businesses
and U.S. consumers who pay, correct?
-Yes, to some extent. I don't disagree with that.
-Oh, Larry, you just admitted
that Trump is a liar on Fox News.
You're gonna have to apologize to him,
and I have a feeling I know how you'll do it.
[ As Trump ] I just got the most beautiful letter.
Larry Kudlow says I'm not a liar.
Let me just find it here in my mail coat.
This one's from Putin.
Obama. Oh!
Pottery Barn.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] So Trump's antagonizing China
in a costly trade war that no one wants,
Democrats and Republicans are both unhappy,
and the stock market is plummeting.
And it really seems like Trump
is feeling increasingly isolated
because during a speech to workers in Louisiana yesterday,
he went out of his way to insist
that the U.S. doesn't need any help from other countries.
-You are not only making our nation wealthier,
but you are making America safer
by building a future of American energy independence.
We are independent. We don't need anybody.
We don't need anybody.
-Oh, boy. Really feels like he's projecting there.
Should be eating out of a tub of ice cream
on his sofa talking to his cat.
[ As Trump ] We don't need anybody.
Isn't that right, Mike Pence?
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Oh.
Oh, that's a good boy.
Oh, you're a good boy.
You're a good boy, Mike Pence. Yes.
People say you're a boring, dead-eyed cat,
but I love you, Mike Pence.
[ Laughter ]
[ Normal voice ] Even on his core issue,
the thing that he claimed he'd be able to fix,
Trump has no strategy and no idea what he's doing.
He spent two years talking about trade with China,
and he's gotten nowhere.
All we have are costly tariffs
and the only thing Trump knows for sure is...
-He likes China. I like the USA.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪