Stephen Moore: Across-the-Board Tariff Has Some Good, But Also Will Raise Prices on Stuff Like Coffee

On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” former Trump Economic Adviser Stephen Moore said that there have been positives and negatives from tariffs and an across-the-board tariff like the one President Trump announced earlier will raise money and might help some businesses “And so, I wouldn’t be totally opposed to that, especially if we used the money to reduce our deficit or to cut other taxes that hurt our businesses. What I haven’t liked is the taxes on things like steel and aluminum and coffee beans and so on, because those really have had a negative impact on the economy.”

Moore said, “[O]n the one hand, … those tariffs have had a negative effect on many medium-sized business[es] and small businesses, some retailers, manufacturers have really been hurt by the tariffs, and so — and I’ve never been a big fan of tariffs. On the other hand, one of the negative repercussions of this decision, Jake, will be the fact that Trump has been a kind of master negotiator with some of these other countries, whether it’s China, Japan, Canada, the Europeans, in using the threat of these tariffs to get other countries to play by the rules, to reduce their tariffs on American goods and services, and to bring hundreds of billions of dollars of capital into the United States. And, guess what? Now, with this Supreme Court decision, he can’t play that card in negotiating, let’s say, with the leaders of China. So that weakens his hand.”

Moore added, “There [are] all sorts of theories about who pays the tariffs. Certainly, consumers bear some of the costs, the importers bear other costs. But, certainly, the people in the countries that produce the goods and services pay. So, it’s an open question about who exactly pays. But, certainly, consumers do pay some of that cost.”

He further stated, “I’ve always felt like, an across-the-board tariff of, say, 10 or 15%, it would raise money, it might help some American businesses that compete with countries like Japan and China, etc. And so, I wouldn’t be totally opposed to that, especially if we used the money to reduce our deficit or to cut other taxes that hurt our businesses. What I haven’t liked is the taxes on things like steel and aluminum and coffee beans and so on, because those really have had a negative impact on the economy. And one of the reasons coffee prices went up, Jake, was because we had a tariff on coffee beans.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett