Obama breaks silence on Trump's controversial tariff plan with blunt eight-word comment
Topics: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Politics, Money, US News, Republicans
Ella Scott
Featured Image Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Politics, Money, US News, Republicans
Barack Obama has broken his silence amid US President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs, remaking they will not be 'good for America'.
On April 2, Trump, 78, announced a new wave of duties affecting countries importing goods into the United States.
The Republican leader revealed a 10 percent ‘baseline’ tax would apply globally - with higher rates for a 60-strong country list dubbed as Trump’s ‘worst offenders’.
Countries struck with high custom tariffs include Japan (24 percent), South Africa (30 percent) and Vietnam (46 percent).
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The announcement came during a White House Rose Garden Address on what Trump dubbed ‘Liberation Day’ for the United States, and now former US President Barack Obama, 63, has had his say.
The Democrat, who served as the 44th President of the United States between 2009 and 2017, appeared at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York on Thursday (April 4) to discuss the duties.
During his speech with College President Steven Tepper, Obama confirmed he was in the midst of finishing the second half of his presidential memoirs and used the platform to speak out about America’s gun laws.
Only then did he touch on his successor, Trump.
“I have deep differences of opinion with my most immediate successor — who’s now president once again,” he said.
“There are a host of policies that we could be discussing where I have strong opinions,” Obama continued, remarking how he believes the government’s commitment to strong principles has ‘eroded’.
Ploughing on, the politician touched on what he truly thinks about the Administration’s recently-announced duties.
“When I watch some of what’s going on now, it does not — look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy.
“I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” the father-of-two continued.
“I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively.’”
Then, he issued a telling eight-word remark on the subject: “Imagine if I had done any of this?”
Obama alleged that it would be ‘unimaginable’ that the ‘same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that’ from him while he or his predecessors were in.
However, he added that it isn’t up to one person to ‘fix’ the current government goings on.
“It is up to all of us to fix this. It’s not going to be because somebody comes and saves you. The most important office in this democracy is the citizen, the ordinary person who says, no, that’s not right.
“I do think one of the reasons that our commitment to democratic ideals has eroded is that we got pretty comfortable and complacent.”
Trump, who used his IEEPA authority to pass the tariffs, believes the new levies will encourage US consumers to buy more American goods instead of reaching for imports.
"For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," he said.
The 10 percent tariff on all countries came into effect today (April 5).
Meanwhile, the individualized reciprocal higher tariff on the countries with ‘which the United States has the largest trade deficits’ are set to come into play on April 9 at 12.01 EDT.
A White House address states that the tariffs will remain in effect until Trump determines the ‘threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated’.