The Trump administration began its first negotiations with China on Saturday, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announcing Sunday that "substantial progress" had been made since the tariff war broke out in April. While discussing the issue on "The Victor Davis Hanson Show," Hanson questioned the "outrage" from outlets like the Wall Street Journal and said Trump is trying to save American jobs through his tariff negotiations.
"What Donald Trump is trying to do is to lower the amount of foreign capital and exchange they have at their disposal and save American jobs," Hanson said. "So if he gets this $1.2 dollar surplus down to $500 hundred million — that sounds to me like he might be able to do that. Cut it in half without destroying them. Then wean us off slowly of Chinese dependence. It’s a fantastic boom."
"What’s so weird about it is that every economist that I know of has been warning us ... that it was not sustainable to be running these huge trade deficits," Hanson added. "No other president has really addressed it. No other president has talked about the trade deficit. Nobody’s talked about the budget deficit, not since Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich balanced the budget deficit. Nobody’s talking about the national debt. I never heard Biden — did you ever hear him say one word that we’re paying $3 billion dollars a day in interest? I didn’t."
After Trump announced tariffs against a handful of countries, China responded with retaliatory measures. While the president later placed a 90-day pause on tariffs for all nations except China, the country was hit with a 145% tariff from the U.S.