Donald Trump to Economic Club of Chicago: Allies Have Taken Advantage of Us as Well

U.S. allies have taken advantage of the United States as well, former President Donald Trump said during an appearance with the Economic Club of Chicago.

The discussion largely centered around tariffs, as Trump defended his position to interviewer, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, who is against tariffs.

“Many people would say the biggest problem with your tariffs is actually geopolitics. You’ve got some credit for effectively saying there was a cold war against China. That’s what America was in the last cold war against the Soviet Union. America won it in part because it rallied allies to it. You’re talking about slamming allies with 30 percent, 20 percent tariffs. Isn’t this time you’re going to end up trying to rally the West and you’re dividing it instead” Micklethwait asked.

“You keep on bringing up these individual examples, but the overall effect is going to be dramatic,” he contended, to which Trump disagreed, bringing up China. However, Micklethwait pushed back, asking again about allies.

“Our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our enemies,” Trump said. “We have a trade deficit of $300 billion with the European Union. Our allies are Japan.”

Trump told a brief story about his relationship with Shinzo Abe, the former Prime Minister of Japan, who he described as a good friend. He described one conversation between the two of them, when Trump told them they had to speak about trade.

Trump said he responded by saying that he could not believe “how many years it’s been that nobody even negotiated with us in America.”

“I said, Shinzo, you have to pay for your cars. You’re sending millions of cars. You don’t accept a car from us. You don’t have one car that you accept, and yet we’re selling 3 million, 4 million of your cars. I said, Shinzo on agriculture, you won’t even accept our agriculture. And I renegotiated the whole trade deal from a little disadvantage, because I was stuck with a bad deal,” he said.

“We have the worst trade deals all over the world,” Trump continued, adding that “there’s no way a rational human being would ever sign the trade deals that this country signed.”

“And I got out of many of those deals,” he added.

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