Republican Senator Rand Paul is speaking out loudly against President Trump on the tariffs, angering many Trump supporters who believed they had an ally in Paul.
Paul is leading a Senate push to repeal Trump’s tariffs, and claimed on CNBC that other Republicans are secretly encouraging him to keep criticizing the policy, because they are afraid to do so publicly because of the backlash they would receive.
“It’s a quiet whisper,” Paul stated, adding “And people come up to me in the hall — you know how in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ they would come up and say, ‘Who is John Galt?’, they whisper in my ear, ‘Free trade is good, keep going, keep going,’ but they don’t want to say it because of the politics of it.”
Watch my morning interview with @CNBC about why tariffs are bad for our economy: pic.twitter.com/WhzQdDVLqT
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 8, 2025
“The whole debate is so fundamentally backwards and upside down,” Paul asserted Tuesday adding “It’s based on a fallacy, and the fallacy is this, that somehow in a trade someone must lose. That somehow, when you trade with someone, there’s a loser and someone’s taking advantage of you, and China is ripping you off, or Japan is ripping you off. It’s absolutely a fallacy. Every trade that occurs in the marketplace is mutually beneficial.”
Paul further suggested that “If you have a free society and I trade with you, if you want to sell me your coat and I give you $200 for it, we both agreed to it, and we’re both happy with the trade.”
The Senator added that “people have to understand that trade is between individuals, not countries, and it’s a false accounting.”
He reiterated this opinion in a Fox Business appearance, declaring “all trade is mutually beneficial, and really the U.S. doesn’t trade with China, you trade with Walmart. So when I go to Walmart, if I pay ten dollars for a shirt, I want that shirt and they want my ten bucks, and we both go away from the deal having succeeded. We mutually benefited.”
TENSE: Larry Kudlow presses Senator Rand Paul on his opposition to President Trump's tariffs 👇
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 8, 2025
Do you agree with Senator Paul? Or President Trump? pic.twitter.com/74vdgbDtVS
Paul continued, “That’s the only reason trade happens. And then if you add it all up and say, ‘Oh, China’s ripping us off,’ that makes no sense. Trade deficits are not real accounting. It’s a fake accounting and it doesn’t mean anything.”
He concluded, “What means something is if you look at trade deficits in proportion to prosperity, the higher the trade deficits, the more prosperity. The lower the trade deficits, the less prosperity. We get a reduction in trade deficits when we go into a recession. We get an expansion of trade deficits when we’re in a boom. So really nothing about a trade deficit gives any real useful instruction to the economy.”
Paul is adamant on this issue.
This Republican senator is leading the charge against tariffs https://t.co/5ZDt2kFfiv
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 7, 2025
Tariffs are a tax paid by the American consumer. See my Op Ed in Fox this morning. https://t.co/e1lww7ERT3
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 4, 2025
Paul’s comments also come as it has been suggested that at least a dozen House Republicans are mulling whether to sign onto Rep. Don Back’s (R-NE) bill which would restrict the White House’s ability to unilaterally impose tariffs.
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