Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that it is a “fallacy” to think tariffs will help the country’s economy as President Trump gears up to impose massive reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
Paul, who has spoken out against tariffs previously, joined The Hill’s “Rising” on Wednesday, where he discussed his disagreement with tariffs, calling them “a tax.”
“On tariffs, I think it’s just economically — it’s a fallacy to think that it’ll help the country,” the Kentucky senator said. “Tariffs are a tax, and if you tax trade or if you tax anything, you’ll get less of it.”
Trump is preparing to unveil new import taxes in the hundreds of billions of dollars Wednesday, with the president reportedly still picking between a flat tariff on all imports, a flat tax targeting imports from specific countries or customized import tax rates for other countries.
Last week, Trump also unveiled that he will impose a 25 percent tariff on foreign-made vehicle imports, also going into effect this week.
“We know by looking at the history of the last — at least 70 years or so in this country, that as international trade has increased, so has the prosperity of our country,” Paul said Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Trump pressured Paul and other Republican senators to vote against a resolution from Democrats to block his emergency declaration to impose tariffs on Canada.
The president, on his Truth Social platform, pushed Paul and the other Republicans to “hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy.”
The Hill has reached out to The White House for comment.
