ICYMI: SCHNEIDER PRESSES TRUMP TRADE ADVISOR ON TRADE WAR
Rep. Schneider: Did you expect the so-called Liberation Day to become Liquidation Week?
WASHINGTON – Rep. Brad Schneider (IL-10), a member of the House Ways & Means Committee, grilled U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at a Ways & Means Committee hearing on the Trump Administration’s 2025 trade policy agenda.
“Amb. Greer, yes or no: didn’t Israel zero out all tariffs on US products before President Trump announced his across the board tariffs on April 2nd? [Greer Responds]
Yet the President still imposed 17% tariffs on Israel.
Amb. Greer, what’s our trade balance with the elephant and fur seals, petrels, albatrosses and penguins living on Heard and McDonald Islands?[Greer Responds]
Yet the president has imposed specific tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands, while not taking any action against Russia, Belarus, North Korea or Cuba.
I don’t want to disappoint my mom and my wife and have them yell and me but Mr. Greer, I am going to say what I think almost everyone is thinking…WTF?
What’s the president thinking?
What did he, and you, think was going to happen after unilaterally declaring a global trade war?
Did you expect the so called “Liberation Day” to become “Liquidation Week,” destroying more than $10 trillion of value and moving us from an extended Bull Market to a self-induced Bear?
Did you intentionally plan to decimate Americans’ retirement accounts and 529 accounts for their kids’ education?
Did you and the President anticipate raising prices for American families already struggling to make ends meet?
Did you mean to make American businesses less, not more competitive in global markets?
Was the intention, with the largest tax increase in U.S. history, to put the United States, and maybe the entire global economy into a recession because of what the Wall Street Journal editorial board, let me repeat that, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, said is “the dumbest trade war in history.”
Already Diane Swonk, the chief economist of KPMG, is saying that her baseline forecast is a recession starting this quarter.
Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan, raised their probability of recession to 79%
WSJ reports that betting markets have it a 70%
Goldman Sachs recently raised their likelihood the second increase since last Wednesday to 45%. Expect them to raise it again.
Indeed, by the time you finish talking today we may already be in a recession.
Less than a week after President Trump’s declaration of the largest sales tax in U.S. history, global markets continue roil as a result of tariff-based recession fears. The President’s newly imposed tariffs have real world impacts for every one of my constituents, who will see higher prices at the grocery store, shortages of critical products, and less money in their retirement accounts and their accounts for their kids’ education.
American families deserve relief. But instead, thanks to President Trump, they’re heading to the store to panic-buy essentials before retailers raise prices.
I’ve heard from literally thousands of constituents about the pain that President Trump has said the country will suffer as a result of these tariffs.
They have written to me sharing that they have lost as much as 20% of their 401K and 529 accounts in the last week alone due to market fluctuations that are responding in real time, to the President’s announcement of arbitrary and capricious tariffs.
Seniors who recently retired are worried about having to return to work to make sure they can make ends meet and today and wonder if they will now outlive their retirement savings.
Small business owners in my district are anticipating having to lay off employees. Large companies in my district who are preparing their next earnings reports for investors are telling me that the impacts of these tariffs are “material.” That’s business speak for the tariffs are going to have a real, adverse effect on their operations and likely adverse affect their cash flows.
Make no mistake — President Trump’s trade agenda is slowing economic growth and job creation, weakening U.S. global leadership, and increasing the cost of doing business in the United States. These tariffs make life for Americans more expensive, make us our nation less secure, and our citizens less prosperous.
Congress must take back its constitutional authority to stop the chaos and the pain President Trump is inflicting on American families and dig us out of what could be a self-inflicted recession.”
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