Former President Donald Trump suggested to business leaders on Thursday that his plans to boost tariffs on foreign imports would solve seemingly unrelated problems reminiscent of the rising cost of kid care within the U.S.
The Republican presidential candidate promised to bring a few “national economic renaissance” by raising tariffs, eliminating regulations to extend energy production, and drastically cutting government spending and company taxes on corporations manufacturing within the United States.
During his appearance before the Economic Club of New York, Trump was asked about his plans to scale back child care costs to enable more women to enter the workforce.
“Childcare is childcare, it’s something you have to have in this country. You have to have it,” he said. He then said his plans to tax imports from abroad more heavily would “solve” such problems.
“We’re going to raise trillions of dollars, and while people often talk about child care being expensive, relatively speaking, it’s not very expensive compared to the amount we’re going to raise,” he said.
Trump launched tariffs to appeal to working-class voters who oppose free trade deals and the outsourcing of factories and jobs. But in his speech Thursday and in his economic plans overall, Trump has made a broader – to some implausible – promise about tariffs: that he can raise trillions of dollars to finance his program without passing those costs on to consumers in the shape of upper prices.
His campaign attacks the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris ‘ Proposals to extend corporate tax rates on the grounds that these will ultimately be borne by employees in the shape of fewer jobs and lower incomes. But taxes on foreign imports would have the same effect, with corporations and consumers having to bear these costs in the shape of upper prices.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the United States imported $3.8 trillion price of products last 12 months. Trump has talked up to now about universal tariffs of not less than 10 percent, if no more, but he has not provided details on how these taxes could be implemented.
Kimberly Clausing, an economist on the University of California, Los Angeles, has repeatedly warned in economic analyses of the likely financial damage that Trump’s tariffs would inflict on people. She identified that Trump desires to finance every part with tariffs, regardless that this just isn’t possible.
“I believe Trump has already spent that revenue to fund his tax cuts (which he hasn’t) or perhaps eliminate the income tax (which he hasn’t),” she said in an email. “It’s unclear how there will be any revenue left to fund child care.”
Trump was asked to speak about child care
Child care is unaffordable for a lot of Americans and financially precarious for a lot of daycare operators and their employees. Democrats in Congress have long argued The child care industry is in crisis and wishes a dramatic increase in federal aid – and a few Republicans have joined them. Trump pointed to his ideas for tariffs in addition to the efforts he announced to curb what he called “waste and fraud.”
“I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small compared to the economic numbers I’m talking about, including growth, but growth is also being boosted by the plan I just told you about,” he said.
Trump’s vice presidential candidate JD Vance Earlier this week, he was also asked about proposals to scale back daycare costs and suggested making it easier for families to put children at home with grandparents or one other relative.
“Make it so that Grandma or Grandpa might want to help a little bit more,” he said. “When that happens, you take a little bit of pressure off the resources we spend on daycare.”
Vance also suggested training more people to work in daycare centers, saying some states require what he called “ridiculous certifications that have nothing to do with child care.”
Trump presented a series of economic policy proposals
In his speech, Trump said he would immediately declare “a national emergency” to realize a large increase in domestic energy supplies and repeal 10 current regulations for each latest regulation the federal government issues. He said Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk had agreed to lead a commission conduct a financial audit of the federal government that might save trillions of dollars.
“My plan will quickly defeat inflation, rapidly lower prices, and restart explosive economic growth,” Trump claimed.
Trump had previously floated the thought of reducing the company tax rate to fifteen percent, but clarified on Thursday that this is able to only apply to corporations manufacturing within the United States. When he became president in 2017, the company tax rate was 35 percent, and he later signed a law to scale back it.
Harris is looking for a company tax increase from 21% to twenty-eight%. Her policy proposals this week were aimed toward encouraging more entrepreneurship, as she bets that making it easier to start out latest businesses will increase middle-class wealth.
On Thursday, Trump attacked Harris’ proposals to stop price gouging and accused her of turning to Marxism and communism.
“She wants four more years to push through the radical left agenda that poses a fundamental threat to the prosperity of every American family and to America itself,” he said.
He also vowed to finish Harris’ “anti-energy crusade,” promising to chop energy prices in half, regardless that energy prices are sometimes affected by international fluctuations. He said an emergency declaration would help with quick approvals for brand new drilling projects, pipelines, refineries, power plants and reactors, to which local opposition is mostly fierce.
And he also said he would ask Congress to pass a law prohibiting using taxpayer money to assist individuals who entered the country illegally. In particular, he said he would prohibit them from taking out mortgages in California, namely a law passed on this State last week. Throughout his campaign, Trump railed concerning the economic impact of the influx of migrants who’ve come to the country in recent times and the strain those migrants have placed on some government services.
In a memo, the Harris team accused Trump of wanting to harm the center class. His ideas would increase the national debt and harm economic growth and the creation of recent jobs, they said.
“He wants our economy to serve billionaires and big corporations,” the campaign said in an announcement.
Their competing economic proposals will likely be the main focus of Tuesday’s upcoming presidential debate. Harris arrived in downtown Pittsburgh on Thursday to devote the subsequent few days to debate preparation, intentionally selecting a key a part of the swing state of Pennsylvania to hone her ideas before the showdown.
Trump plans to massively resort to tariffs
In June, the right-leaning Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s proposed tariffs would amount to a $524 billion annual tax increase that might shrink the economy and value 684,000 jobs. After Trump floated tariffs of as much as 20 percent in August, the Harris team seized on an evaluation that suggested that quantity would increase the standard family’s spending by nearly $4,000 a 12 months.
The money raised by the tariffs wouldn’t be enough to offset the price of his various income tax cuts, including a plan to scale back the company tax rate from 21% to fifteen%, which the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates would cost $5.8 trillion over 10 years.
Economists have warned against Trump’s plans to impose tariffs that he said would bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Some said such import tariffs could exacerbate inflation despite Trump’s guarantees to chop costs. Inflation peaked at 9.1% in 2022 but has fallen to 2.9% since last month.
“Some would say it’s economic nationalism. I call it common sense. I call it America First,” he said Thursday.
