Clinton Says He Warned Trump Years Ago That Americans Pay Tariffs
Bill Clinton says Trump pitched him on tariffs over golf 24 years ago. At a Mississippi rally, he says he warned that Americans pay them, but Trump “didn’t hear” it.
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Former President Bill Clinton says he warned Donald Trump about tariffs over golf 24 years ago. Trump “didn’t hear what he didn’t want to hear,” he says, and still does.
He spoke at a rally in Tupelo, Mississippi, on Friday, Oct. 30. Clash Report posted the video on Nov. 2.
The remarks came four days before the U.S. midterm elections. Tariffs and prices are central campaign issues.
What Clinton Said
Clinton says he and Trump once had “quite a friendly relationship.” He recalls: “24 years ago we’d play golf. Even then, he believed in these tariffs.”
Trump kept saying, in Clinton’s telling: “We’re the biggest, strongest, richest country in the world. Why don’t we just put a bunch of tariffs on everybody else and stop paying taxes altogether?”
Clinton says he answered that foreign producers do not absorb the cost. “They just charge the people who buy the stuff, whatever it is. So we pay the tariffs.”
He ends with a jab: “And he, just like now, he didn’t hear what he didn’t want to hear.” This is Clinton’s own account of private conversations. No response from Trump has been reported.
Where He Said It
Clinton was in Tupelo to back Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom against Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mississippi Today reported. WAPT put the crowd at about 500.
Tupelo is a furniture-making hub. “You not only pay more for the food, you pay more to sit down at the table and eat it,” Clinton said, per Mississippi Today.
He also linked higher gas prices to the Iran war, WAPT reported.
The Mississippi event followed a Florida stop for gubernatorial candidate David Jolly. The Daily Mail described that stop as Clinton’s first campaign appearance of this cycle. For more on the vote, see our midterms explainer.
Where Trump’s Tariffs Stand
The Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20 that the emergency law IEEPA gives no tariff power, Congress’s research arm notes. That struck down the “reciprocal” and fentanyl tariffs.
Trump then imposed a temporary 10 percent global surcharge under Section 122. It expired on July 24. New Section 301 tariffs of 10 or 12.5 percent on 60 economies replaced it, the American Bar Association reports.
Sectoral Section 232 tariffs of 10 to 50 percent were not part of the ruling, the trade office said. Clash Report covered the July handover.
What the Price Data Show
Consumer prices rose 3.7 percent in the year to September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says. Gasoline is up 34.2 percent over 12 months, the BLS data show.
Economists call the inflation mainly an “oil story” tied to the Iran war. Tariffs are adding “slightly” on top, an RBC economist told CNBC.
The economy still grew at a 3.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, CNBC reported. The White House has not publicly answered Clinton’s tariff remarks, in sources reviewed.
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