President Trump said Monday that he will propose a “reciprocal” tax on imports this week, reviving an idea he raised earlier to combat U.S. trading partners engaging in unfair trade practices.
“We cannot continue to be taken advantage of by other countries,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting in the Oval Office. “We cannot continue to let people come into our country and rob us blind and charge us tremendous tariffs and taxes and we charge them nothing. We cannot allow that to happen.”
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised the proposal, saying the country needs a reciprocal tax because “we really have to claw it back” from trading partners.
The U.S. is renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the president’s comments appeared to be aimed at those talks.
“We are going to charge countries outside of our country – countries that take advantage of the United States. Some of them are so-called allies but they are not allies on trade,” Mr. Trump said. “So we’re going to be doing very much a reciprocal tax and you’ll be hearing about that during the week and the coming months.”
He said the U.S. has lost a “tremendous amount of money” because of NAFTA.
“Canada does not treat us right in terms of the farming and the crossing the borders,” Mr. Trump said. “We cannot continue to be taken advantage of by other countries.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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