TRANSCRIPT: Leader Schumer Remarks At Press Conference On Donald Trump’s Erratic “Trade Deals” Resulting In Increased Tariffs And Higher Costs For Americans
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke at a press conference ahead of Donald Trump’s imposed August 1st tariff deadline, exposing how devastating and destabilizing these tariffs will be on the economy and the American people. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Yesterday, Trump announced a deal with South Korea, and it's very similar to the deals we saw in the past with Japan and the EU: all talk, no substance, and raising costs for the average American. So let's go ahead and break some of these deals down. Each time, it's the same story. Trump gets up, says whatever pops into his head that day, and the next day it comes out that everything he said—or almost everything he said—was exaggerated, wrong, false.
On July 22nd, Trump said Japan is going to invest $550 billion in new investment in the U.S. You know what Japan said the next day? It's less than 2% of that. Okay? Meanwhile, tariffs went up [to] 15%. They were 2%, now they're 15%—a huge increase in cost for the American people. In the EU, on July 27th, Trump claimed $750 billion in new energy purchases and $600 billion in new investment in the U.S. Following the announcement, the EU said those numbers are unachievable, and besides, they didn't have to obey the agreements—they were non-binding. And again, tariffs up 15%. South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam—I’d say to the media, when he announces his next tariff deal, you better ask a lot of questions, because the next day it's all going to be undone. In some cases, Trump has claimed commitments from these countries that they didn't make. We still don't know what the agreement with Vietnam includes—neither do they. They've said that. Trump claimed a deal nearly a month ago, but neither side agrees on what he agreed to with Vietnam.
So what is this chaos? Our businesses—our small businesses, our medium-sized businesses, our large businesses—need some degree of certainty, and all they're getting is chaos and inflation. You saw the numbers yesterday. So the Trump tariff trade war is a trade war on the American people. We've seen this week the chaos and uncertainty. Business investment down 3%, in good part because people don't know what the tariffs will be. No one knows what's coming when Donald Trump has no plan, no strategy, and he's not honest about what he presents. But we do know one thing: tariffs are up since Trump took office. Look at the price of goods—leather, 40% higher; fresh produce, 7% higher; cars, 12.3% higher; computers and electronics, 18% higher. It is estimated the average American family will pay $2,400 more a year because of the Trump tariff tax. Amazing. That's a lot of money for a lot of people. It's often more than raises people get for the whole year. Okay, when Trump came into office, the EU tariff was 2%. Now it's 15%. If you look at what number Trump shot out there before, the real change is what it was and what it is. In almost every case, it's gone up significantly. When Trump came into office, the tariff on South Korea was 1%—now it's 15. When Trump came into office, the tariff on Japan was 1.5—now it's 10 times that. It's going to cost half a million jobs.
Meanwhile, if there's one country that's benefited from all this chaos, it's China. Over the past few weeks, Trump has granted the Chinese government greater access to our advanced AI chips. A number of us worked to prevent those chips from being sold to China when Biden was president. They're vital to our national security. Trump’s hitting the brakes on new restrictions on other sensitive tech exports to Chinese companies. We had restrictions. So you know, our kids, our grandkids, and even us—we're going to suffer when China starts catching up and getting ahead of us on key industries like AI, where they can dominate many parts of the global economy and even the way of global thinking. So our national security should never be a bargaining chip—least of all when we're dealing with Beijing. The deals he's made lack transparency, accountability, means of enforcement. What trade barriers are being reduced? Who's making sure the investments are real? And if there are investments flowing in, how are we ensuring the money is going to benefit the American people—not one of Trump's billionaire friends, which seems to be the M.O. of this administration. So this is a deal, alright. It's a raw deal. A raw deal for the American people.
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