President Donald Trump is delaying, by 30 days, the 25 percent tariffs he ordered for all goods entering the United States from Canada and Mexico, but that doesn’t mean he has given up on the idea. And Trump’s 10 percent tariff on goods from China remains in place.
Economist Robert Reich, who served as secretary of labor for the Clinton Administration, discussed Trump’s tariffs during a Tuesday, February 4 appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” And he warned that Trump’s tariffs could not only inflict economic pain on Americans, but encourage instability around the world.
Reich told “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski and her colleagues Jonathan Lemire and Katty Kay: “In terms of what we can do, between now and the midterm elections of 2026, there’s not a great deal. I mean, you know, presidents do have some authority and some power — obviously, a separate branch of government. He was elected even though it was a squeaker of an election: one and a half percent of Americans in terms of that margin… Donald Trump is a bully, and what he’s trying to do is bully everybody.”
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The economist continued, “I mean, what does a bully do? A bully picks on his weakest and most dependent neighbors, for example: Canada, Mexico, Denmark.”
Lemire noted that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expressing a feeling of “betrayal,” and Reich explained why alienating Canada and other allies is a terrible move on Trump’s part.
Reich told Brzezinski, Lemire and Kay, “Canada is not only our most important ally in many, many respects and our neighbor, but we rely on Canada. We’ve always relied on Canada, and Canada is very dependent on us. Many Canadians are, just like many Mexicans — I’m assuming — are reevaluating their view of the United States and Americans generally… And again, the bullying techniques used by Trump are undermining very, very long and very, very important established relationships.”
The former Clinton Administration labor secretary noted that Trump is also threatening to impose tariffs on the United States’ European allies.
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“Trump is talking about his next target being Europe and slapping big tariffs on Europe,” Reich warned. “Well, the potential trade between Canada and Europe and Mexico, already very significant, could get much larger. One of the big beneficiaries here that’s not being talked about is China. China would like nothing better than to have Canada and Mexico and Europe and the European Union all battling the United States, because that would give an opening to China… The fundamental issue here is not only jobs, it’s wages.”
Reich continues, “It’s Americans’ access to the kind of medications we need around the world. It’s the problem of prices. My worry here, ultimately, is that in terms of Trump’s drive to show himself as very powerful — that nobody can stop him, that he is the bully of bullies — he is going to increase prices. I mean, tariffs are essentially — as we now are learning, as most people know — taxes. They increase the costs of goods coming into the United States. A lot of Americans are going to be paying much more or could be paying much more.”
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