Are Steel and Aluminum Tariffs a Good Thing? Former Trump Transition Team Member Says It Depends on THIS

Tariffs will hurt free trade, critics say, but supporters contend they will help Americans.

“Growth is the president’s best weapon in the political arena,” Ken Blackwell said. The former Trump transition team member spoke with Fox News’s Charles Payne and other co-panelists about tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, a move the president believes will benefit the U.S.

That growth, said Blackwell, has expanded the economy, increased the work/employment opportunities, and lifted family incomes. Nothing should jeopardize this growth or the benefits to working families.

Is Blackwell saying President Donald Trump’s tariffs would do that? It depends. Blackwell is concerned about how the president has structured the tariffs, and whether he goes after “specific bad actors” and not take a “meat cleaver” approach.

Marc Lotter, special former assistant to the president, said standing up for American jobs is why Donald Trump was elected.

“It’s a false choice to say that we have to stand for American jobs or our allies. This president is going to find a way to do both.” Lotter said that “free trade” is mislabeled.

“We can’t ship a car from the United States to Europe without facing a 10 percent tariff and a value-added tax. It’s 25 percent going to China, yet we hardly charge anything, I think 2.5 percent, for a car coming into our country from either of those two areas. ”

It’s not fair in the first place, Lotter said, and the president is calling it out. He’s making a stand for American workers.

Then the host himself went off about what Indian and Chinese countries are doing. Watch the clip.