{"id":266569,"date":"2018-03-05T13:40:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=266569"},"modified":"2018-03-06T15:47:55","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T20:47:55","slug":"my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/05\/my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs\/","title":{"rendered":"My Wild Guess on Trump\u2019s Tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: This is Tom in Mitchell, South Dakota. Tom, I\u2019m really glad you called. How are you doing today, sir?<\/p>\n

CALLER: South Dakota blizzard dittos, Rush. Thanks for taking my call.<\/p>\n

RUSH: You bet, sir.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Sunday mornings I\u2019m usually held captive by the local AM radio station while I\u2019m doing chores. They have Meet the Press on, so I tell myself that I listen to it so I can keep up with the talking points, but I\u2019m always disgusted to hear F. Chuck Todd trying to swerve the guest host, whoever he\u2019s talking to —<\/p>\n

\"\"RUSH: Wait a minute. Why are you held captive by the local AM radio station?<\/p>\n

CALLER: It\u2019s all I can get on Sunday morning that resembles any type of information about what\u2019s going on in the political world.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, I see. Okay. Gotcha. And they\u2019re carrying Meet the Depressed.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, sir. And so I\u2019m listening to that, and yesterday morning they had Mr. Ross on, the secretary for the economy I guess.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That would be Wilbur Ross as in the Mister Ed\u2019s “Wilbur.” Wilbur Ross, he\u2019s the secretary of the Department of Commerce<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Thank you. He definitely wasn\u2019t any puppet, and it was quite refreshing to listen to F. Chuck Todd try to swerve him into telling him what he wanted to hear and for Mr. Ross to tell him exactly how it really was.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Was this about tariffs?<\/p>\n

CALLER: This was about the tariffs, yes, sir. And he kept trying to get him to say for sure, for sure that Trump was gonna sign off and push these tariffs on the aluminum and the steel. And Ross wouldn\u2019t do it. Ross kept telling him, “I\u2019m telling you when Trump decides what he\u2019s gonna do, that\u2019s what he\u2019s gonna do.” And, I mean, Todd was all over the place just trying to get him to say something that he wanted him to say, not what Ross was going —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that\u2019s typical. That\u2019s typical of journalists trying to insert themselves in the story and shaping it so that they can say they did. But what was he trying to get Wilbur to say?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Trying to get him to say for sure this is what\u2019s gonna happen, these tariffs are for sure gonna go through, that seemed to be the main push point of the conversation.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, you know, it was a campaign promise, and it\u2019s all related to trade deals. And Trump thinks that we are just botching trade deals left and right and we\u2019re losing still our rear ends in these things. In his mind and what he says, it\u2019s all about helping the American consumer. I think — this is an uneducated “I think.” This is a wild guess “I think.”<\/p>\n

But my wild guess here is that what\u2019s really going on is that Trump is trying to apply pressure on Canada and Mexico for serious renegotiation of NAFTA. And I think the tariffs are a threat. I don\u2019t doubt that he\u2019s serious about them. They are a campaign promise.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Trump today in Washington. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed up at the White House. What do you bet that Netanyahu did not have to go in the back door today like he did with Obama? And what do you bet that when he was in there, Trump didn\u2019t say, “Okay. Look. I\u2019m going up to have lunch with Melania. You stay here and you work on it and you get it done and you tell me what we\u2019re gonna do when I get back.” You remember when Obama did that?<\/p>\n

Netanyahu and the Israeli delegation came in at dinnertime, Obama sent \u2019em into some room and said, I\u2019m going up to have dinner, and you better have this fixed when I get back. And like the Dalai Lama, Netanyahu had to come in and leave at the back door. So here\u2019s Trump. And this is while they\u2019re sitting there in the Oval Office next to the fireplace. A reporter, “Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President, are you gonna back down on tariffs?”<\/p>\n

\"\"THE PRESIDENT: No, we\u2019re not backing down. Mexico is — we\u2019ve had a very bad deal with Mexico. Very bad deal with Canada. It\u2019s called NAFTA. Our factories have left our country. Our jobs have left our country. For many years NAFTA\u2019s been a disaster. We are renegotiating NAFTA as I said I would, and if we don\u2019t make a deal I\u2019ll terminate NAFTA. But if I do make a deal which is fair to the workers and to the American people, that would be I would imagine one of the points that we\u2019ll negotiate, will be tariffs on steel for Canada and for Mexico. So we\u2019ll see what happens. But right now, hundred percent, our country on trade has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world, whether it\u2019s friend or enemy. Everybody. China. Russia.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Doesn\u2019t sound like he\u2019s kidding around, does it? Sarah Palin today has a piece saying<\/a>, “What do you mean Trump start a trade war? Trump\u2019s not starting a trade war? He\u2019s gonna try to end one. We\u2019ve been in a trade war for who knows how many years.” Palin\u2019s piece is really pro-Trump.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Here is Tom in St. Louis. Tom, I\u2019m glad you waited. You\u2019re next, sir. Hello.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, sir. I have a possible solution to our trade problems that doesn\u2019t include tariffs, that conservatives, liberals, and even the government might applaud. Let\u2019s use steel as an example. If you are in China and you want to sell us some steel, you have to get a U.S. government permit in order to do that. To get that permit, you have to comply with the same environmental issues that a domestic steel plant does, as well as the same OSHA standards that a U.S. steel producer would have to supply. You have to pay for that U.S. government person to come over there to see if you can get a permit. Without a permit, you cannot export steel to the United States.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And so your solution is to soak \u2019em on the permit?<\/p>\n

CALLER: No, it\u2019s that they have to comply with our standards. My feeling is that the reason our steel costs more than theirs is because of our environmental standards that we have to comply with —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, I see.<\/p>\n

CALLER: — and our OSHA standards that we have to comply with. That\u2019s why our steel is so expensive.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019ve got it. You have come up with a modification of my age-old plan to destroy our enemies by exporting liberalism.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, sir!<\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, let\u2019s export feminism to the ChiComs and have them start dealing with a bunch of bra burners and —<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yes, sir.<\/p>\n

\"\"RUSH: — see if they like it and let\u2019s export the environmentalist wackos over there. There is a great idea you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I mean, the liberals would love it and the government would love it because it would require a government employee to do the permitting, and the conservatives would love it because I\u2019m pretty sure they wouldn\u2019t be able to comply with our standards.<\/p>\n

RUSH: There\u2019s no way! (chuckling) There\u2019s absolutely no way. Not only couldn\u2019t they, they wouldn\u2019t, as a matter of principle.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, yeah. So what are they gonna do? Stop buying our corn or you gonna stop buying our soy? Where else are they gonna buy corn?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah, well, they could get it from North Korea.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (laughing)<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that\u2019s about all the North Korean military is eating, if you want to know the truth is raw corn.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Again, the thing that makes our products so expensive is complying with our government regulations. Let\u2019s just export our government regulations.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I like it. I\u2019ve had a variation of that. Do you think Trump is gonna follow through on the tariffs — and if he does, are you in favor of it?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Not necessarily. But I think it\u2019s typical Trump. I mean, you start way beyond (chuckling) where he intends to end up.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah. Ask for three times what you want.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, whatever. Yeah. But it gets their attention, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, it does. Except this was a campaign promise, and it\u2019s right out of the promise playbook, and it ties right in with his thoughts on the disadvantages we put ourselves in with trade. You know what I think the big difference is? Well, it\u2019s hard to specify one. But I think one of the reasons why… Let\u2019s just take tariffs. Trump proposes tariffs, and look at the reaction. I mean, it\u2019s like you\u2019ve poked a bunch of people personally in the eye, and they\u2019re just outraged over it.<\/p>\n

But what is it?<\/p>\n

In the case of tariffs, we are essentially telling people who compete with us in steel that we are gonna start taxing their steel, and their reaction is predictable. I think up to now, prior to Trump, the United States has a strange… Some of our leaders and certainly the Washington establishment had a strange psyche. I think on the left side, would you agree that the left is laden with guilt like you and I can\u2019t understand? They feel guilty over the United States superpower status, and they feel guilty over United States economic superiority, supremacy.<\/p>\n

\"\"They feel guilty about a number of things, and that makes them look at every one of our competitors as a victim of us. The other factor, I think, is fear — and Trump is fearless, and this is what they don\u2019t understand. We acted — way too often in the past — afraid of what, say, Gorbachev was gonna do. We were afraid of what the Chinese leaders would do. We were afraid of offending them, we were afraid of doing things that might make them mad, and we wanted to avoid making them mad because for some reason they\u2019re all gonna declare war on us.<\/p>\n

I mean, it was a totally defensive posture that our State Department has held for the longest time and other agencies of the government. Just a defensiveness and almost a fearfulness of asserting ourselves that we either didn\u2019t have the right to or that it was unfair for us to do so because we\u2019re so big already. And when they huff and puff over the institution of new policies, we get frightened over what they might do and we back off, or more than likely, we don\u2019t propose things in our self-interest anyway.<\/p>\n

We continue to give foreign aid to people that don\u2019t appreciate it and rip us publicly. It\u2019s kind of like this mayor of Oakland. What is preventing from us dealing with this? This woman is breaking several laws, and they are felonies, in addition to openly taking action against her own government. This is not a targeting of anybody else, I don\u2019t know who would be blamed here, but it\u2019s almost like there is a fear of dealing with her. It\u2019s like we\u2019re afraid of what her constituents might do or we\u2019re afraid of what the people of California might do.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll expand this to the international stage. We\u2019re afraid to enforce, we\u2019re afraid to enforce our policies, we\u2019re afraid to the enforce our laws, we are afraid to assert ourselves for a whole host of reasons. Now throw all this out, put Trump in there who\u2019s not afraid to do anything. He\u2019s not afraid to promote America, he\u2019s not afraid to defend America, and he doesn\u2019t care who\u2019s offended in the process. And when he does these things, the people in the establishment who have been acting out of fear and defensiveness all these years start quivering and quaking, “No, no, no, what\u2019s he doing?”<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re afraid of, but clearly they are afraid. And I think it\u2019s another indication of how different somebody like Trump is from the standard operating procedure that has been the norm for the Washington establishment. We don\u2019t assert ourselves at the U.N., for example, until now. I mean, we may exercise our veto rights in the Security Council vote, but in terms of actually standing up for ourselves and telling enemies to pound sand, we just don\u2019t do it. It\u2019s something that\u2019s unseemly. We have to take a certain ration of excrement because that\u2019s the price we pay for being a superpower. Well, Trump doesn\u2019t subscribe to anything like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: My wild guess here is that what's really going on is that Trump is trying to apply pressure on Canada and Mexico for serious renegotiation of NAFTA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":266586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Wild Guess on Trump\u2019s Tariffs - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/05\/my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"My Wild Guess on Trump\u2019s Tariffs - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: My wild guess here is that what's really going on is that Trump is trying to apply pressure on Canada and Mexico for serious renegotiation of NAFTA.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-030518-Trump-Talks.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"George Prayias\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/\",\"name\":\"The Rush Limbaugh Show\",\"description\":\"Excellence In Broadcasting\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/05\/my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-030518-Trump-Talks.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/APP-030518-Trump-Talks.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":360},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/05\/my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/05\/my-wild-guess-on-trumps-tariffs\/\",\"name\":\"My Wild Guess on Trump\\u2019s Tariffs - 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