president Donald Trump At a White House press briefing on Friday, he expressed anger at the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the emergency tariffs. Trump has vowed to take “stronger” measures to maintain tariffs, saying at one point he had so many options he could “destroy” the country.
Trump began his speech by lashing out at the courts and Democrats while declaring, “Today I will sign an order imposing 10 percent global tariffs under Section 122, on top of the normal tariffs we already impose.”
He later made wild accusations that the judges on the court were influenced by foreign influence, adding, “They don’t want to do the right thing. They’re afraid of doing it. This is an important case to me.”
“More is a symbol of economic national security. And, I would say, very important to our country itself because we are doing very well as a country. We have never done better. The good news is, as the entire court recognized in this terrible decision, and as Congress recognized as they referred, there are methods, practices, regulations and authorities that are even stronger than the IEEPA tariffs that I could use as president of the United States,” he continued, arguing that he would be able to use other methods to keep the tariffs in place.
Trump later elaborated on some of those powers in his speech.
“We have other options. Good options. More money to make. We’ll absorb more money, and we’ll be stronger because of it. We’re absorbing hundreds of billions of dollars. We’re going to continue to do that. And yet, to show you how ridiculous that argument is, the court said I’m not even allowed to charge a dollar. I can’t charge a dollar!” Trump fumed, adding:
Not a dollar to be collected. I would have used a penny, but we don’t make pennies anymore. We save money. The $1 fee cannot be charged to any country regulated by IEEPA. Not to protect other countries’ $1 I guess. This must be done to protect other countries, certainly not the United States of America which they should be interested in protecting. This is what they are supposed to protect. But I can cut off any and all trade or business with that country. In other words, I can be a deal breaker. I can destroy this country!
I was even allowed to impose embargoes that undermined foreign countries. I can embargo. I can do whatever I want, but I can’t charge $1. Because that’s not what it says or even reads. I can do whatever I want to them, but I can’t charge anything. So I can destroy this country, but I can’t do it for a fee. I can give them a little two cents.
But I can’t charge under any circumstances. I can’t charge them anything. Think about it. How ridiculous is this? I was allowed to embargo them. I can tell them, “You can’t do business in the United States anymore. We want you out of here.” But if I want to charge them $10, I can’t do that. This is incorrect. Their decision was wrong, but it doesn’t matter because we have very strong alternatives that have been approved by this decision. You know, they’ve approved the decision. For those who think they own us. They said I had absolute licensing rights, but no rights to charge licensing fees. So think about it. I am entitled to a license.
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
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