Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) made a frank admission on Wednesday, telling CNN that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are effectively a tax that consumers will be stuck paying. Nevertheless, the senator said he supports the tariffs as part of a longer-term effort to encourage the domestic production of goods.
Trump has announced, paused, imposed, and scaled back various tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the two largest U.S. trading partners. The whirlwind, on/off nature of the tariffs has roiled markets and cast a cloud of uncertainty over the business world.
“[T]he businesses seem confused,” Kaitlan Collins told Mullin on The Source. “What’s a business leader left to think? Or an investor?”
Mullin acknowledged, “It’s tough right now” and that businesses “need certainty.”
“Tariffs is a tax and it will be passed on to consumers,” he conceded. “But it also allows us to have open markets. So, if you want to have open markets and access to other markets, so let’s go past Canada, and let’s go past Mexico and start talking about the rest of the countries we allow to come in here that the president says we want to have reciprocal tariffs on you. If you’re going to charge us 36%, we’re going to charge you 36%. If you want to charge us zero, we’ll charge you zero.”
Collins responded by noting Mullin’s admission that tariffs are essentially a tax. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt bizarrely claimed that tariffs amount to a tax cut for Americans.
“What you just said is important – that a tariff is a tax and it is passed on to consumers,” the host said.
“Of course it is,” Mullin replied. “Everybody knows that.”
“That is something the white house does not acknowledge,” Collins said.
“No, that is something that the president, who as a business person, understands that completely,” Mullin insisted. “No one understands the economy better than this president. There hasn’t been a president that understands the economy better than this president.”
Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that exporting countries pay tariffs imposed by the U.S. on their goods.
Watch above via CNN.
