Eric Trump appeared to mix up tariffs and sanctions during an appearance on Fox News on Monday night, aggressively going after Mexico, Canada, and China as his top targets.
“You want to allow drugs to come through our southern border? We're going to tariff you,” he said. “You want to allow them to come through Canada? We're going to tariff you.”
Donald Trump’s second son proceeded to rant about costing the economies of the three countries “billions”, while failing to acknowledge the impact tariffs have on American consumers as prices on imported goods are inevitably hiked in response.
His president-elect father pledged on Monday to hike tariffs on goods from Mexico, China, and Canada in an attempt to get them to crack down on illegal immigration and drugs coming into the U.S.
Trump threatened to put in place a tariff of 25 percent on Canada and Mexico. Eric Trump’s Fox News hit came just moments after the former president posted on Truth Social that China would face additional tariffs.
“I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail,” he wrote.
“Representatives of China told me that they would institute their maximum penalty, that of death, for any drug dealers caught doing this but, unfortunately, they never followed through, and drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before,” he claimed.
“Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10 percent Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”
Eric Trump continued his father’s rant on Fox News, going after China.
“China, if you're going to allow this stuff to get sold in our country, largely produced in China, we're going to add another 10 percent ... We are going to cost your countries, your economies, we're going to cost your businesses billions, hundreds of billions of dollars if you think ... you're going to poison Americans,” he said.
“It's not going to happen. You're not going to destroy our youth. You're not going to destroy our society. You're not going to destroy our families. You're not going to do it. It's going to cost you.”
The president-elect said on numerous occasions during the campaign that a tariff is not a cost to the American consumer but to another country. But at least one rather significant group disagrees — economists.
“A popular delusion is that foreigners would bear the burden,” the Bloomberg editorial board wrote before the election.
Tariffs are paid to the government by the retailer or manufacturer importing the products, not the country where the goods were purchased from. Trump’s tariffs may help some companies whose products are already made in the U.S., but economists have warned that tariffs would raise costs for US companies who have to buy goods from abroad.
U.S. companies may take on that extra cost and make a smaller profit, or as is more likely, they could pass those costs on to the American consumer.
Washington Post and CNN political commentator Catherine Rampell noted on Bluesky on Monday that “If you voted out the incumbent because you thought grocery prices were too high, I got some bad news from you.”
“For example, 90 percent of our avocados come from Mexico. Guac is REALLY gonna cost extra,” she added.
“We import $105B in cement/lime/minerals and $28B in lumber/paper from Canada. We also *already* tariff that lumber to death,” Rampell said. “Expect construction costs to go through the roof.”
