President Donald Trump announced during a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron that the United States will proceed with its tariffs on other countries, noting that the policies are “moving along rapidly.”
“We’re on time with the tariffs, and it seems like they’ve been moving along rapidly,” Trump said. “We’ve been mistreated badly by many countries, not just Canada and Mexico. We were taken advantage of.”
“We were led by, in some cases, fools, because anybody that would sign documents like they signed, where they were able to take advantage of the American people, which happened over the last long period of time, except for a little four-year period that took place four years ago,” he noted. “But anybody that would agree to allow this to happen to our country should be ashamed of themselves.”
Trump declared the “tariffs are going forward on time and on schedule.”
“This is an abuse that took place for many years and I’m not even blaming the other countries that did this. I blame our leadership for allowing this to happen,” he said. “Who can blame them if they made these great deals with the United States and took advantage of the United States on manufacturing, on just about everything? Every aspect you can imagine they took advantage of.”
“All we want is reciprocal. We want reciprocity,” he added. “We want to have the same,” Trump added. “If someone charges us, we charge the same. It’s very simple. It will be very good for our country. Our country will be liquid and rich again.”
Trump recently signed a memo directing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and global trade representative Jamieson Greer to assess “fair and reciprocal” tariffs.
“On trade, I have decided on, for the purpose of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff,” Trump said. “Meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them, no more, no less. In other words, they charge us a tax on tariffs, and we charge them the exact same tax. Very simple. Nobody knows what that number is … You go to the individual country and you look at what they’re charging us. In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them. Those days are over.”
