Fact Check: Walz Claims Trump Lost a Trade War with China

CLAIM: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) claimed that then-President Donald Trump lost a trade war with China.

VERDICT: FALSE. Trump actually won the trade war, raising tariffs without raising prices and showing the resilience of the U.S. economy.

Walz attacked Trump’s trade policy during the vice presidential debate on CBS News in New York City on Tuesday. However, he used a false talking point that distorted the history of what actually happened with Trump’s tariffs.

Many conservatives, accustomed to free-trade policies, were skeptical when Trump fought a trade war against China, raising tariffs on a range of Chinese goods. Economists predicted inflation; experts said Trump was making a mistake.

The opposite happened. Prices stayed stable. Inflation stayed low. China retaliated, but American producers held up, and the Trump administration provided aid to farmers hit by retaliatory commodity tariffs. Most important of all, the Chinese economy began to falter, as producers absorbed the cost of the tariffs in an effort to keep export prices low. Trump had actually won the trade war, and proved trade can be an effective tool of national security and diplomacy.

Trump did the same, incidentally, with other countries. When he threatened Mexico with trade consequences, it agreed to stop migrant caravans at its southern border. When he excused Mexico and Canada from tariffs he imposed on other countries, both of those countries agreed to dump NAFTA for the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

By the end of 2019, China agreed to sign a new, “Phase I” trade deal with the United States, setting trade on a new and more favorable foundation. There were two reasons that deal was overshadowed: first, Democrats impeached Trump; and second, China allowed the coronavirus to escape a lab in Wuhan and to spread around the world. But Trump had won the trade war, extracting concessions from China while protecting American industry and American agriculture.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.