President Donald Trump has been vowing to ‘make America great again’ for the last decade, and one of his answers for doing that is bringing in more aggressive tariffs.
The 78-year-old spoke at the House GOP retreat at his golf club, the Trump National Doral, in Miami, Florida, where he revealed his plans to make the US ‘more powerful than ever before’, and it has left people shocked.
“America is going to be very rich again, and it’s going to happen very quickly. It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” President Trump said, just one week on from his inauguration.
“Do you know the United States, in 1870 to 1913, all tariffs – and that was the richest period in the history of the United States, relatively speaking, in other words, relatively – and they set up the great Tariff Commission of 1887.
“And this commission had one function – what to do with all the money that we took in. It was so enormous that they had no idea, it was a blue ribbon committee was set up 1887.”
There’s a lot of talk being said about tariffs, so let’s clear up what they are – they are taxes imposed on foreign goods, meaning many of these goods will cost more to sell in the US.
While Trump has vowed to end federal income taxes, it doesn’t mean residents will get away Scot-free. What is likely to happen is that prices will go up on foreign-made goods, meaning the consumer will pay more.
Advanced countries fell out of favor with tariffs following World War II, because they often lead to ‘reduced trade, higher prices for consumers, and retaliation from abroad’, the Council on Foreign Relations reports.
A tariff is a tax imposed on foreign-made goods, paid by the importing business to its home country’s government.
Back to Trump’s speech…
The president continued: “And what to do with all of the money that we had. And again, Teddy Roosevelt [26th POTUS] was a beneficiary, because when [William] McKinley [25th POTUS] was killed, he took over this vast sum of money, and he did all of those national parks and all of the other things.
“And I’m not knocking him, but he was given a vast amount of money, and that was all made through tariffs, as we had no income tax. The income tax came in in 1913.
President Trump has vowed to impose more aggressive tariffs on foreign goods ((Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images)
“As I said in my speech last week, instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens. Does that make sense? Right?”
In short, this means Trump has plans to impose tariffs on foreign goods.
After a snippet of his speech was uploaded to Twitter, US citizens were left shocked at the suggested move.
“Wow,” typed one person simply, as another commented: “Not a huge fan of him but reducing or completely canceling the income tax would make a huge difference to us.”
And a third added: “American citizens shouldn’t pay, we should tariff all of other countries who have used our economy as a piggy bank.”
Featured Image Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump signs new executive bill to reinstate ‘global gag rule’ on abortions
Experts have warned the ‘Mexico City policy’ will have ‘deadly consequences’ for people across the globe
What is the Mexico City policy?
The new executive bill, known as the ‘Mexico City policy’, cuts off any aid provided by the US to any foreign organization that provides abortion services, counseling, or even advocacy.
So, essentially, a bunch of companies face a tough choice – either cease all abortion-related services, or they’ll lose assisted funding provided by the US.
In fact, organizations must now provide proof they will not use funding from any other source for abortion-related services, including that of non-US donors, if they want assistance from the US.
History of the Mexico City policy
The ‘Mexico City policy’ is often used by Republican presidents, having first been brought in by Ronald Reagan at a 1984 United Nations conference.
The policy has remained divisive for a number of years and has been yo-yo’d in and out of law – it tends to go that Republicans will sign it in, Democrats will revoke it.
The bill has even been dubbed the ‘global gag rule’ due to it restricting not just services but also speech, according to its harshest critics.
act does the Mexico City policy have in the real world?
The Guttmacher Institute, which looks into stats on abortion restrictions and their subsequent impact, states the policy can cut off access to contraception, while also leading women to go towards unsafe abortions.
Rebecca Hart Holder, who is the president of Reproductive Equity Now, said: “Reinstating the Mexico City policy will have deadly consequences for people across the globe.
“The United States is a vital partner to healthcare providers and organizations around the world, and robbing those frontline providers of their ability to provide the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare, and even information about people’s options, will result in people losing their lives to pregnancy complications.”
