How Trump Wields Tariffs as Negotiating Tactic and Instrument of Statecraft: Andrew Hale

American Thought Leaders

Jan Jekielek

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andrew Hale is a senior trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. In this episode, we discuss how Trump is using various trade tools to strengthen alliances and weaken adversaries.

“I look upon what he’s trying to do as a negotiating tactic. He’s using tariffs as an instrument of statecraft, and also for economic coercion, to achieve matters that sometimes go well beyond trade policy,” Hale says.

Hale says that tariffs should be used against America’s foreign adversaries, but not necessarily against its allies.

“Among [those on] the protection side, there’s a knee jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems. And actually, a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington. And we can fix them right here in Washington, with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have,” he says. “What we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years, what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years—which was this seamless trade with China, where we treat them as a market economy. They’re a non-market economy. They’re a foreign adversary.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When I look upon what he's trying to do as a negotiating tactic, he's using tariffs as an
0:05.0	instrument of statecraft and also for economic coercion to achieve matters that sometimes
0:10.1	go well beyond trade policy.
0:12.2	Andrew Hale is a senior trade policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
0:16.8	In this episode, we discuss how Trump is using various trade tools to strengthen alliances and weaken adversaries.
0:24.2	Amongst the protection side, there's a knee-jerk reaction saying a tariff is the panacea to all of our problems.
0:29.3	And actually, a lot of these problems we created right here in Washington,
0:31.7	and we can fix them right here in Washington with dealing with some of the stupid and foolish regulations that we have.
0:37.0	What we cannot go back to is what we had during the Clinton years,
0:40.5	what we had during the Bush years, the Obama years,
0:42.3	which was the seamless trade with China,
0:44.1	where we treat them as a market economy.
0:46.3	They're a non-market economy.
0:47.7	They're a foreign adversary.
0:49.3	This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Yekjek.
0:55.0	Andrew Hale, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.
0:58.4	Thank you so much for having me own.
1:00.3	Trump's first foray into using tariffs was this 10% tariff on Chinese goods.
1:07.3	And the reaction of the Chinese Communist Party to this has been described by some as kind of weak and lackluster.
1:13.7	What's your take?
1:14.9	You're talking about his second term.
1:16.4	In his first term, Trump attempted to actually negotiate with President Xi,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 7 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jan Jekielek, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jan Jekielek and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.