The “major winner” in Donald Trump’s trade war will be Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to Lawrence Summers, former treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton.
Summers spoke with CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Monday.
“I do wonder what you make of Trump and some of his administration officials saying that Canada is inciting this trade war through their actions. Do you see it that way at all?” Sanchez asked.
Summers answered, “It’s absurd. Canada is our friend. Canada is not an important source of illegal immigrants. Canada is not an important source of illegal drugs. Canada is an important market for American products. Canada is a crucial co-producer with American automobile companies that enable North America to compete with Asia and Europe. This whole policy is of the ‘stop, or I’ll shoot myself in the foot,’ kind. It represents a self-inflicted supply shock, a wound on the American economy. It is very dangerous. The major winner will be Xi Jinping.
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“Why do you say that?” Sanchez asked.
“Because we are, with our tariffs on China, giving him an excuse for their poor economic performance and ability to blame it on us, because by alienating all our traditional allies and creating uncertainty about whether we can be relied on, we’re driving people into China’s arms.”
Summers said Americans will start feeling the financial impact of the tariffs “within a small number of weeks.”
He posted to X, “It is pretty rare to formulate a policy that is lose for American consumers, lose for American producers, lose for American influence in the world and only is benefiting our adversaries who are getting a great deal of satisfaction out of seeing this spectacle of traditional alliances being torn apart with these kind of threats.”
The tariffs on Canada and China were set to go into effect at midnight Monday. Mexico worked out a one-month reprieve with Trump in exchange for 10,000 Mexican National Guards troops at the border.