The Charlie Kirk Show - April 08, 2025


The Real History of Tariffs


Episode Stats


Length

31 minutes

Words per minute

156.47493

Word count

4,942

Sentence count

441

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Dow and S&P 500 hit new records and the dollar hit new highs on a day that was supposed to be one of the worst days of the year for the markets. What's causing the rebound? John Carney of the Daily Caller joins us to explain why the markets are rallying and why we should not be worried.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:00.000 Andrew Colvin in for the one and only Charlie Kirk, who is out on assignment.
00:00:04.000 He's in Illinois at another campus stop, our biggest one yet.
00:00:07.000 He'll have more for you tomorrow.
00:00:09.000 In the meantime, we got lots of tariff news.
00:00:11.000 The market's rebound.
00:00:13.000 What's causing that?
00:00:14.000 What's behind it?
00:00:15.000 And then we bring on John Carney from Breitbart, who is the tariff expert at Breitbart.com.
00:00:22.000 Should check him out.
00:00:23.000 We talk about what ultimately is the president's goal here.
00:00:27.000 And then we talk about Smoot-Hawley in the 1930s and Reagan and protectionism.
00:00:32.000 Does it work or does it not work?
00:00:34.000 Very fascinating conversation.
00:00:36.000 If this show means something to you, please consider becoming a monthly subscriber at members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:43.000 Members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:45.000 You help keep the lights on for us and you get a lot of...
00:00:48.000 Extra exclusive access to the show, merch, events, and so much more.
00:00:53.000 That's members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:55.000 Buckle up. 0.96
00:00:56.000 Here we go.
00:00:57.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:59.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:01:01.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:01:04.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:08.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:09.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:10.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:01:12.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:18.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:27.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:30.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:40.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:47.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:49.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:51.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:55.000 All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:57.000 Andrew Colvin in for Charlie Kirk, who's on assignment today.
00:02:02.000 We have lots of updates from yesterday.
00:02:05.000 What a difference a day makes.
00:02:07.000 That is the theme of, I think, this beginning part of our show here.
00:02:11.000 What a difference a day makes.
00:02:13.000 Over the weekend, I mentioned this yesterday, that it was the sky is falling.
00:02:18.000 It was the chicken little folks. 1.00
00:02:20.000 Everything was awful.
00:02:21.000 On Sunday night, I was a part of a bunch of different text message chains that were all about how everything was awful, everything was terrible, and we were going to be heading into economic calamity.
00:02:33.000 And yesterday got off to a really rough start.
00:02:36.000 It was a volatile day, there's no doubt about it.
00:02:39.000 Currently, however, we are up across the indices, and that is quite the change from yesterday.
00:02:47.000 We are up about 1,000 points on the Dow, 400 points on the NASDAQ, and 123 points on the S&P 500.
00:02:54.000 So the sky is not falling.
00:02:56.000 We're not out of the woods yet, there's no doubt about it.
00:02:59.000 There is reason for real optimism.
00:03:02.000 Real optimism.
00:03:03.000 We're going to play some of these clips that show what a difference a day makes.
00:03:08.000 Now, I want to start with something that Secretary of Treasury Scott Besant said yesterday.
00:03:15.000 He said, here's the key.
00:03:17.000 President Trump has given himself, afforded himself maximum leverage, maximum negotiating leverage.
00:03:25.000 And this is key, and I'm going to explain it after the clip.
00:03:27.000 148. President Trump has maximum negotiating leverage right here, right now.
00:03:34.000 I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they're playing with a pair of twos. 1.00
00:03:41.000 Traditionally, if you look at the history of the trade negotiations, we are the deficit country.
00:03:52.000 So what do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us?
00:03:58.000 We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us.
00:04:04.000 So that is a losing hand for them.
00:04:08.000 They're playing with a pair of twos.
00:04:10.000 Now, what does he mean by that?
00:04:11.000 Scott Besson is saying that China is exporting so much to us, we're only exporting one-fifth to them.
00:04:20.000 So if they raise tariffs on us, it hurts us about one-fifth as much as it hurts them.
00:04:24.000 The other piece of that puzzle is that China is playing with a house of cards.
00:04:31.000 We often call them that their economy is kind of like a paper tiger.
00:04:35.000 It is weaker than the world would have – Why is that?
00:04:48.000 Rife with oversupply in their economy, meaning they'll build buildings for all of these renters or buyers, and they sit at 20%, 30% occupancy.
00:04:57.000 And when you run an economy like that, you're prone to having vulnerabilities.
00:05:01.000 And one of their main vulnerabilities is that they are an export economy.
00:05:05.000 They have to export to the biggest market in the world, namely America, in order to survive and thrive.
00:05:10.000 They're not able to do that if they've got 104% tariffs slapped on them from the United States.
00:05:16.000 So we are playing with the upper hand.
00:05:19.000 President Trump knows that he has leverage, and he is exerting that force with...
00:05:25.000 Vicious cruelty on the Chinese who have exerted their force on us with vicious cruelty for years and years and years, and he's getting the leverage back. 1.00
00:05:34.000 That's what this is about.
00:05:37.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
00:05:38.000 The numbers don't lie.
00:05:40.000 The impact that Balance of Nature makes every single day is astounding.
00:05:43.000 You can see the numbers for yourself on their website at balanceofnature.com.
00:05:46.000 Listen to these stats concerning Balance of Nature's worldwide success.
00:05:50.000 More than a thousand success stores reported each month.
00:05:53.000 Hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.
00:05:56.000 Millions of orders delivered each year.
00:05:58.000 And billions, yes billions, of fruits and veggie supplements consumed by people who have decided to start living better.
00:06:03.000 There's only one thing missing and that is you.
00:06:06.000 That is balanceofnature.com.
00:06:39.000 There's some breaking news that hit that Donald Trump, President Trump, the Trump administration has just won another Supreme Court case against these rogue activist judges.
00:06:51.000 This time they affirm his authority to fire probationary workers.
00:06:57.000 So this affects like 15,000, 16,000 different firings that have happened that were held up in the courts.
00:07:04.000 So we've got Mike Davis, Article 3 Project joining us later.
00:07:08.000 This is just stringing together common sense, Article 2 powers of the presidency with the authority to actually run the country as the founders saw fit.
00:07:19.000 They saw an energetic...
00:07:21.000 executive that was able to move quickly and respond to crises and not always be held up by the whims of the courts or the legislature.
00:07:32.000 So there are obviously places in the Constitution and authorities that are vested in the president and then put in the legislature, but...
00:07:41.000 This has gone on for far too long in Trump's presidency where they're using judicial activism in order to thwart his agenda and the mandate given to him by the people.
00:07:51.000 So this is a big win.
00:07:52.000 We're going to dive into this even more.
00:07:54.000 But I want to get back just quickly here.
00:07:57.000 And we've got John Carney from Breitbart who we're going to go into all this tariff stuff.
00:08:01.000 But this is brinksmanship.
00:08:03.000 President Trump is using brinksmanship.
00:08:06.000 At a level we have not seen in a long time to bring our trading partners who have been abusing us back to the table.
00:08:13.000 So let's continue.
00:08:14.000 I want from Scott Besson here.
00:08:17.000 Play cut 160.
00:08:19.000 Larry, I can tell you that there are 50, 60, maybe almost 70 countries now who have approached us.
00:08:27.000 So it's going to be a busy April, May, maybe into June.
00:08:31.000 And Japan is a very important military ally.
00:08:35.000 They're a very important economic ally.
00:08:38.000 And the U.S. has a lot of history with them.
00:08:41.000 So I would expect that Japan's going to get priority. 0.98
00:08:47.000 Just because they came forward very quickly.
00:08:49.000 But it's going to be very busy.
00:08:52.000 And if President Trump again gave himself maximum negotiating leverage, and just when he achieved the maximum leverage, he's willing to start talking.
00:09:03.000 Maximum leverage, 50, 60, 70 different countries that have come to the table, including Japan.
00:09:10.000 Including this morning, new news on South Korea.
00:09:14.000 President Trump put a truth social about that.
00:09:16.000 This is exactly why you're seeing the markets react.
00:09:20.000 You're seeing the markets react because they believe that President Trump is going to revert back to deal-making posture.
00:09:29.000 And this is what the entire international financial community is hoping for and waiting for.
00:09:35.000 Now, I want to caution everybody.
00:09:37.000 I'm not convinced.
00:09:39.000 That President Trump is ready to make a deal, for example, zero for zero tariff deal.
00:09:44.000 And now let me explain why.
00:09:45.000 Because actually the lion's share of unfair trade practices that exist between countries is not about tariffs.
00:09:54.000 Tariffs are an important piece of that, certainly. 0.86
00:09:56.000 But the lion's share of those practices that are unfair, cheating, would be currency manipulation, would be other trade barriers, would be dumping product.
00:10:08.000 There is much to discuss in this way.
00:10:10.000 And this is fascinating.
00:10:13.000 So Art Laffer is a famous economist from the Reagan era.
00:10:16.000 He goes on Fox all the time.
00:10:17.000 He's a friend of Charlie.
00:10:18.000 Famous for the Laffer curve.
00:10:20.000 The Laffer curve is basically a place where you could lower taxes to a certain point where you hit an optimal rate.
00:10:28.000 And at that optimal rate...
00:10:31.000 That you would increase the tax revenue coming into the treasury, right?
00:10:35.000 So that's counterintuitive for most people because you'd think if you just keep raising taxes, you'd make more revenue for the treasury and for the country.
00:10:43.000 Well, that's not true according to the Laffer curve.
00:10:46.000 At some point, you can actually go lower.
00:10:47.000 You'll spur production in the economy, which will actually increase revenues.
00:10:51.000 We saw this with the Trump tax cuts in 2017.
00:10:55.000 Eventually, we had record revenues going into the treasury because of that.
00:10:59.000 Art Laffer wrote a Wall Street Journal piece and he referenced this clip.
00:11:03.000 And it came from the 2018 meeting where Trump threw the gauntlet down on the table and he said, hey, if you guys reduce all your trade barriers, we'll do the same.
00:11:13.000 So play cut 162.
00:11:15.000 Good pull, Ryan.
00:11:16.000 162. I believe that you raised the idea of a tariff-free G7.
00:11:21.000 I did.
00:11:22.000 Oh, I did.
00:11:23.000 That's the way it should be.
00:11:24.000 No tariffs, no barriers.
00:11:27.000 That's the way it should be.
00:11:29.000 And no subsidies.
00:11:30.000 I even said no tariffs.
00:11:33.000 Ultimately, that's what you want.
00:11:34.000 You want a tariff-free, you want no barriers, and you want no subsidies, because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries, and that's not fair.
00:11:45.000 So you go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free.
00:11:49.000 That's the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance.
00:11:52.000 Is this where we're headed?
00:11:56.000 Hey, Charlie Kirk here.
00:11:57.000 Ever see your dog slowing down or having health issues and wonder what can I do to make them better?
00:12:03.000 Well, my friend, add Rough Greens to your dog's food for 90 days and you'll see changes that will amaze you, guaranteed.
00:12:10.000 Invented by naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black, Rough Greens wants to invite you and give your pup the Rough Greens 90 day challenge.
00:12:18.000 In the first 30 days you'll see shinier coats and increased energy.
00:12:22.000 By day 60 your dog will have a stronger immune system, less shedding, and improved joint function all due to live nutrients you've added to their diet.
00:12:30.000 And at 90 days, better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you might even have reduced their cancer risk.
00:12:38.000 Fetch a free jumpstart trial bag for your dog today.
00:12:41.000 Go to ruffgreens.com.
00:12:43.000 Just use promo code Charlie.
00:12:45.000 That is ruffgreens.com, promo code Charlie, and just cover shipping.
00:12:48.000 You don't have to change your dog's food.
00:12:50.000 To improve your dog's health, just add a scoop of Ruff Greens.
00:12:53.000 That is ruffgreens.com.
00:12:57.000 Without further ado, like I said, I'm so excited to bring in my next guest.
00:13:02.000 That's John Carney from Breitbart.
00:13:05.000 He is the...
00:13:06.000 Finance and Economics Editor at Breitbart.com.
00:13:09.000 John Carney, welcome to the show.
00:13:10.000 Thank you for joining us.
00:13:11.000 Hi, thanks for having me.
00:13:13.000 John, you know, Alex Marlowe is a good friend, and he raves about you when it comes to tariffs.
00:13:20.000 I mean, he's been saying, you've got to get John on, you've got to get John on.
00:13:25.000 You know, there's been so much news made in the last two days.
00:13:27.000 Sum it up for our audience as best you can.
00:13:29.000 We were down yesterday.
00:13:30.000 It was a volatile day.
00:13:32.000 Today, I think there's still some volatility in the markets, but we're up.
00:13:35.000 What is going on?
00:13:36.000 Why are we up?
00:13:37.000 Break it down.
00:13:38.000 Yeah, so one of the things that happened last week was that Trump announced tariffs that were much higher than people expected and much more comprehensive.
00:13:49.000 If you asked Wall Street where Trump was likely to go on tariffs, they thought he was going to come up with a handful of countries, maybe the worst actors, the top 15, I heard people say the hateful eight, and tariff them.
00:14:04.000 And maybe they thought their tariffs were going to be at lower rates.
00:14:08.000 So Trump surprised the market with much higher tariffs and much more comprehensive, basically the whole world.
00:14:15.000 And a lot of people weren't sure whether he was going to do reciprocal tariffs or just a 20% tariff on everything.
00:14:22.000 and he kind of cut the middle.
00:14:24.000 He did a 10% tariff on everybody and he did what they're calling like a halfsy reciprocal tariff where we're not tariffing them at the full extent of their trade deficits, but we're doing about half.
00:14:36.000 So the market freaked out.
00:14:38.000 People didn't like it.
00:14:39.000 One thing I've told a lot of people though is, look, the market going down doesn't mean your policy is wrong.
00:14:45.000 The market often goes down when something unexpected happens and it can be the right policy.
00:14:52.000 When the Fed raises interest rates, Stocks go down.
00:14:59.000 When Jerome Powell gave his famous speech in Jackson Hole two years ago, when he said, maybe it was three now, time flies, but when he said, you know, we're going to inflict pain on the economy in order to get inflation down, stocks plummeted.
00:15:14.000 And they fell for days afterwards.
00:15:17.000 and whenever the Fed sounded more hawkish, stocks went down even further.
00:15:21.000 Did that mean it was a mistake to get rid of inflation?
00:15:25.000 No, we absolutely needed to tighten monetary policy.
00:15:29.000 So he Here, I would say the same thing.
00:15:31.000 This was a policy we needed.
00:15:33.000 We need to reorient to reset global trading.
00:15:37.000 The stock market didn't like it, but they often don't like the correct policy.
00:15:41.000 Today, what we're seeing with this surge in the market, it was at least when I looked earlier, it was up.
00:15:49.000 Something like the most since 2022, a huge recovery.
00:15:54.000 One of the reasons for this is that the rest of the world is not acting as the tariff critics said they would, which was trade war.
00:16:01.000 We are going to just fight.
00:16:03.000 We refuse to give in.
00:16:05.000 No, in fact, the rest of the world wants to preserve their access to the greatest economic resource ever existed on Earth.
00:16:13.000 And that is the American consumer.
00:16:15.000 So they want to preserve their access.
00:16:17.000 They're coming to us and saying, what do we need to do to do that?
00:16:22.000 So a lot of those reciprocal tariffs, not the 10% universal tariff, but the reciprocal tariffs will be able to come down if these countries are serious about reducing their trade deficits.
00:16:34.000 They'll come down.
00:16:35.000 And I think the stock market is, this is a relief rally that the rest of the world is acting rationally.
00:16:43.000 Yeah, I mean, you kind of saw this from the EU yesterday when they said, listen, we're willing to do a zero-for-zero tariff.
00:17:08.000 You know, we're willing to make a good deal.
00:17:11.000 Europe was trying to say that, you know, listen, we're the good guys here.
00:17:15.000 You guys are being crazy, but we're going to make a good deal.
00:17:17.000 I played this clip earlier, John, but I think it bears repeating.
00:17:23.000 I saw this referenced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Art Laffer, came out yesterday.
00:17:30.000 And it's from a G7 meeting in Canada in 2018.
00:17:35.000 And Trump is sitting there in front of all the trading partners saying, hey, why don't we get rid of all our trade barriers?
00:17:40.000 Let's just do it.
00:17:41.000 And, you know, Art Laffer's take is that it exposed the hypocrisy of our trading partners because from Brussels to Beijing, they were all running out the door saying, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:17:51.000 What are you talking about?
00:17:53.000 And they didn't want anything to do with this.
00:17:55.000 But this is Trump.
00:17:56.000 Basically, I think an echo from the past of saying, hey, Guys, why don't we get to this place?
00:18:02.000 Because it's not just about tariffs.
00:18:03.000 It's about currency manipulations, about dumping.
00:18:06.000 It's about blocking whole industries from your market and tariffs, of course.
00:18:11.000 So let's go ahead and play this and get your reaction to it.
00:18:13.000 162. I believe that you raised the idea of a tariff-free G7.
00:18:18.000 I did.
00:18:19.000 Oh, I did.
00:18:20.000 That's the way it should be.
00:18:21.000 No tariffs, no barriers.
00:18:24.000 That's the way it should be.
00:18:26.000 And no subsidies.
00:18:27.000 I even said no tariffs.
00:18:29.000 Ultimately, that's what you want.
00:18:31.000 You want a tariff-free, you want no barriers, and you want no subsidies, because you have some cases where countries are subsidizing industries, and that's not fair.
00:18:42.000 So you go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy-free.
00:18:46.000 That's the way you learned at the Wharton School of Finance.
00:18:49.000 John, do you think that Trump 2018 is still Trump 2025?
00:18:54.000 I mean, is this still his North Star, or was this brinksmanship, knowing that they would never agree to it, and he actually secretly wants to keep a certain amount of protectionism in place in America?
00:19:06.000 No, I think Donald Trump actually has a lot of faith in the ability of American businesses to compete when the level...
00:19:14.000 When the playing field is level, he really does look at the reciprocal tariffs, at least, as a temporary thing to try to force the rest of the world to live up to their free trade rhetoric, right?
00:19:27.000 Whenever we raise tariffs, they say, oh, no, no, you know, no, no, you know, please don't raise the tariffs.
00:19:34.000 That's not fair.
00:19:35.000 But they won't lower their own.
00:19:37.000 And an important thing he said in that clip is, and you mentioned, it's not just tariffs.
00:19:41.000 It's all of the non-tariff barriers to a level playing field.
00:19:45.000 We need to address those.
00:19:47.000 And I'm a little suspicious.
00:19:49.000 The Europeans said, oh, we'll go to zero tariffs on industrial products.
00:19:53.000 Well, what do they mean by industrial products?
00:19:54.000 Does that include cars?
00:19:55.000 It's not clear to me it does.
00:19:57.000 What do they mean?
00:19:58.000 And are they willing to get rid of the non-tariff barriers?
00:20:02.000 Because if they're not...
00:20:03.000 It really won't help much to just get rid of the tariffs.
00:20:06.000 In fact, their tariffs are so bad that if we impose their non-tariff barriers are so bad that if we impose those on them, they couldn't sell anything here.
00:20:17.000 We have been a country that was the consumer of last resort for the entire world.
00:20:24.000 The entire continent of Europe runs a giant trade surplus against the U.S., meaning we sell them a lot less than we buy from them.
00:20:34.000 That was intentional for a long time.
00:20:37.000 We wanted Europe to become a rich partner in the free world.
00:20:41.000 We wanted to defeat communism.
00:20:42.000 We wanted them to join us as a powerful economy to basically make the entire world richer. 0.52
00:20:53.000 Well, that worked. 0.54
00:20:54.000 Our policy worked out.
00:20:55.000 So what this is in many ways is us declaring victory.
00:20:59.000 Saying, guys, we did it.
00:21:00.000 You're rich.
00:21:02.000 Now let's have a level playing field.
00:21:04.000 You don't need unequal access to U.S. markets.
00:21:07.000 If you open your markets, our markets will stay open to you.
00:21:10.000 And if you will not do that, if you continue to run these giant trade deficits, then we are going to start to have very high tariffs on what you're doing.
00:21:20.000 Because the age of one-sided trade agreements is over.
00:21:25.000 And I think that's, even though people are freaking out about Donald Trump, I think that's true.
00:21:31.000 I don't think we're ever going back to the one-sided trade deals that we had.
00:21:35.000 I think this is the way forward.
00:21:37.000 And I think that's frankly why Europe and everybody else is coming forward now, because they realize there's no going back.
00:21:43.000 This is a page that has been turned.
00:21:47.000 We are in a new chapter of history.
00:21:49.000 So you asked about is Donald Trump 2018 the same Donald Trump today?
00:21:53.000 I'd say almost.
00:21:55.000 The thing about Donald Trump 2018, I think he was a little naive.
00:21:58.000 I think he genuinely thought it would be easy to get Europe, to get China even, to come along and do freer trade.
00:22:08.000 I think he now realizes that they'll make a lot of promises.
00:22:13.000 And they did this.
00:22:13.000 Europe... Very, very much did this in Trump's first term.
00:22:17.000 They made a lot of promises about opening up their markets and never did.
00:22:22.000 So what Donald Trump is saying this time around is the baseline is going to be tariffs.
00:22:27.000 You are going to get the tariffs if you show us that you are opening your markets to the U.S. And the way to show that is that you're buying a lot more stuff from the U.S. Then your tariff will come down.
00:22:39.000 Until then...
00:22:41.000 We're going to trust but verify.
00:22:43.000 We'll listen to you.
00:22:44.000 We'll understand what you want to do.
00:22:45.000 Your tariffs aren't going to come down until we see that you're making progress.
00:22:50.000 Exactly. John, I think that's really smart.
00:22:53.000 I noticed this yesterday with the markets.
00:22:57.000 Every time there was a little bit of a glimmer of hope that the zero-for-zero trade with Europe or whatever, the markets would react.
00:23:05.000 It would go back to the White House and they'd say, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh.
00:23:09.000 And I have to just tip my hat to them.
00:23:11.000 The resolve with which they are approaching tariffs, I mean, they're not freaking out.
00:23:16.000 The sky's not falling at the White House, but it is around the markets.
00:23:19.000 But they're saying here, no, we're prepared to stomach the storm right now.
00:23:24.000 Private student loan debt in the U.S.
00:23:26.000 totals about $300 billion.
00:23:29.000 Give Y-Refi a try at YRefi.com, Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
00:23:33.000 May not be available in all 50 states.
00:23:35.000 Just call 888-Y-REFI-34, log on to YRefi.com.
00:23:39.000 Bad credit is accepted.
00:23:40.000 Y-Refi offers a three-minute rate check without any credit impact.
00:23:44.000 Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact WS.
00:23:49.000 Go to Y-R-E-F-Y dot com. 0.76
00:23:52.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y dot com. 0.99
00:23:56.000 So you guys can get out at YRefi.com.
00:24:26.000 Andrew Colvett in for the one and only Charlie Kirk, who is on assignment today doing his college tour.
00:24:32.000 He's in Illinois.
00:24:33.000 It's going to be very exciting.
00:24:34.000 Yesterday, he was in South Carolina in the rain, and still thousands of students showed up.
00:24:40.000 Just remarkable what we're witnessing.
00:24:44.000 John Carney with Breitbart News.
00:24:46.000 John, we've got, let's say, about a minute left here, and I'm going to tee up.
00:24:52.000 By the way, Georgia Maloney, breaking news here, the Italian prime minister will soon arrive in Washington to negotiate the tariffs and goods imported from Italy.
00:25:06.000 So that's another piece of breaking news.
00:25:08.000 We're hearing 50, 60, 70 countries lining up to negotiate.
00:25:13.000 So let me just set the stage here, John.
00:25:15.000 Reagan famously did not like tariffs.
00:25:18.000 He used them sparingly, but he thought long term that they would be problematic.
00:25:23.000 And he referenced himself, the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s and saying that it worsened the Great Depression.
00:25:30.000 He referenced Nixon and some of the problems there, although Nixon got reelected on a landslide.
00:25:37.000 Explain, you know, are we looking at a direct parallel?
00:25:42.000 John Carney.
00:25:43.000 No, I don't think that this is anything like the 1930s at all.
00:25:47.000 And in fact, we were already headed into a depression.
00:25:50.000 I actually think the Smoot-Hawley Act is unfairly vilified.
00:25:54.000 It was not the cause of the Great Depression, and it really didn't do much to make it worse.
00:25:58.000 And Reagan, frankly, was a big protectionist.
00:26:03.000 I know he has a legend as a free trader.
00:26:05.000 It's not really true.
00:26:06.000 He did a lot to protect U.S. autos from Japanese predatory practices. 0.99
00:26:10.000 In fact, he imposed Yeah, dude.
00:26:26.000 You're getting to the crux of the issue here, John.
00:26:28.000 So we're talking about Smoot-Hawley, the 1930s, Nixon, Reagan's perspective on it.
00:26:33.000 Conservatives have generally, historically, been against protectionism.
00:26:37.000 But to your point, Reagan was dealing with...
00:26:40.000 These are not apples to apples, okay?
00:26:42.000 Reagan still had the 1980s.
00:26:44.000 We were still an industrialized country.
00:26:47.000 Our manufacturing base had not been hollowed out in the way that it has been now.
00:26:51.000 And furthermore, Reagan was a bit of a protectionist in practice.
00:26:56.000 And so we are dealing, these are not direct one-to-one parallels.
00:27:00.000 Just continue on with this thought here, because I agree with you, Smoot-Hawley gets vilified, but the Great Depression already started.
00:27:06.000 Smooth Holly didn't get, I think, put into place until the 1930s.
00:27:10.000 Black Friday, obviously, was in 1929.
00:27:12.000 John Carney, the floor is yours.
00:27:15.000 Let's start with Smoot-Hawley because this is something that comes up a lot and then we'll get to Reagan because I think the Reagan legacy is a lot more complicated than people think.
00:27:24.000 Smoot-Hawley definitely did not cause the Great Depression.
00:27:27.000 The Great Depression was caused by misguided monetary and fiscal policies, but not by a tariff on imports.
00:27:35.000 Remember what a lot of people say about tariffs on imports, that they're going to raise consumer prices.
00:27:39.000 Look back at the Great Depression.
00:27:41.000 Was the problem that prices were too high?
00:27:44.000 No. The asset prices crashed in the Great Depression.
00:27:47.000 People weren't working in the Great Depression.
00:27:50.000 It was not a period of inflation.
00:27:52.000 It was a period of deflation.
00:27:53.000 Well, one thing is they say that the rest of the world retaliated with tariffs against Smoot-Hawley.
00:28:05.000 That is a very strange and really almost insane take.
00:28:10.000 The rest of the world was actually moving towards protectionism itself.
00:28:14.000 The idea that they would just have been free traders, if not for the Smoot-Hawley tariff, that the rest of the world...
00:28:20.000 the world only reacted to the United States in 1930 is crazy.
00:28:25.000 In fact, the rest of the world was going to adopt those tariffs.
00:28:29.000 Anyway, so Smoot-Hawley was part of a movement that the rest of the world was doing, which was putting on tariffs.
00:28:34.000 Did that maybe make the Great Depression worse?
00:28:38.000 Sure. The fact that the entire world adopted tariffs may have then raised protectionist barriers, may have contributed a little bit to the Great Depression, but it was a minor thing.
00:28:49.000 And again, the context was very different than it is today.
00:28:54.000 And what I would say is that The reason why people like to blame Smoot-Hawley is because it was a big, big tariff.
00:29:02.000 And people who hate tariffs want to try to assign it to the Great Depression.
00:29:06.000 But real serious economic scholars do not think there was a large role played by tariffs, by our tariffs in causing the Great Depression.
00:29:14.000 Maybe some other tariffs may have contributed to it by hurting our exports.
00:29:18.000 But again, the world was headed into a Great Depression.
00:29:23.000 Trade was going to fall no matter what.
00:29:26.000 Exactly. We don't have to relitigate the Great Depression here.
00:29:32.000 It's akin to Hitler in that it's the only historical reference most people have about economics versus war.
00:29:39.000 The truth is that there was a tightening monetary policy that was instituted during the Great Depression as well, which is the exact opposite of what economists now use to get out of a recession or a deep recession where they ease monetary policy and they flood the So
00:30:10.000 I think it ends with a...
00:30:14.000 Universal 10% tariff, maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower.
00:30:18.000 That is basically a revenue tariff.
00:30:20.000 It is a tax to, I call it a friends and family charge, a cover charge to come into the United States.
00:30:25.000 And I think the reciprocal tariffs on most countries will come way down because they want access to the U.S. markets.
00:30:32.000 And so we will have freer trade than we had when this all started.
00:30:36.000 With the exception of China, they're not going to change, and we are going to decouple with China eventually, unless they have some sort of political revolution that overthrows their communism. 0.68
00:30:46.000 I'm not counting on that.
00:30:47.000 So I think we get decoupling with China, free trade with everybody else, and a revenue tariff that lets us cut taxes on Americans here at home. 0.52
00:30:55.000 Yeah, and John, I think, let's just be very clear, he wants better, more equal playing field with Europe, with India, with, you know, Vietnam, Cambodia.
00:31:05.000 This is really, Japan, but this is really a trade war with China.
00:31:09.000 We are decoupling from China.
00:31:11.000 He's going to force the hand of China. 0.96
00:31:14.000 And if President Trump can unite the world against...
00:31:19.000 The CCP and basically decouple the world's industrial supply chains from the CCP.
00:31:26.000 It's going to be a massive historical win.
00:31:28.000 John Carney, Breitbart.com.
00:31:30.000 Check it out.
00:31:31.000 Thank you so much, John.
00:31:33.000 We'll have you on again soon.
00:31:33.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.