President Donald Trump on Wednesday told the American people his exact message to foreign leaders who may ask for exemptions to his reciprocal tariff policy, providing a long list of what they must do, including dropping their own tariffs, building their products in the United States, and buying American.
“Reciprocal tariffs, again, reciprocal, back and forth, back and forth, and we would, I call this kind reciprocal. This is not full reciprocal. This is kind reciprocal,” Trump said during the highly anticipated Rose Garden event before offering his message to leaders looking for exemptions.
“We charge them, my answer is very simple, if they complain, if you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America, because there is no tariff if you build your plant, your product in America,” Trump said.
“Likewise to all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs, I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers,” Trump said, taking a hardline stance.
Trump also instructed them to cease manipulating their currencies.
“They manipulate their currencies like nobody can even believe, which is a bad, bad thing and very devastating to us, and start buying tens of billions of dollars of American goods,” Trump said.
“Tariffs give our country protection against those that would do U.S. economic harm, and many people were looking to do U.S. economic harm, maybe not so obviously, but they were doing tremendous economic harm. But even more importantly, they will give us growth,” he said of the tariffs, noting that these will provide growth “like you haven’t seen before.”
“It’ll be something very special to watch,” the president added.
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