Exclusive — JD Vance: Establishment Media Were Wrong About Tariffs Because of ‘Bias of Inaction’ in D.C.
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance told Breitbart News during an exclusive White House interview Tuesday that establishment media, Democrats, and some Republicans were wrong about President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy because of their “bias of inaction.”
Breitbart News sat down with JD Vance in his West Wing office Tuesday morning, a day after the administration’s significant victories in the trade wars with Mexico and Canada, marked by the countries agreeing to secure the borders they share with the United States as part of an agreement to pause the implementation of the tariffs. Vance said there is a general “bias toward inaction” in the nation’s capitol when asked how establishment media got it wrong about Trump’s strategy.
“Because I think that there is such a bias towards inaction for everybody in Washington, if something has been done for the same way for the last 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, there’s this basic assumption in the media, among Democrats and, unfortunately, even among some Republicans, that we should just keep it the way that it is,” Vance said. “And I think President Trump is looking at the country and saying, ‘Well, are we stronger than we were 30 years ago? No. Are we wealthier than we were 30 years ago? No. Is our life expectancy higher than it was 30 years ago? No.’ It’s actually fallen. And so clearly, biasing towards inaction is a terrible mistake for the American people. We need to be biased towards action, and that is true with the tariff conversation.”
Vance then compared the perspective of tariff critics, who contend there will be negative consequences for the American consumer, with Trump’s, emphasizing that the president is utilizing America’s tremendous leverage in ways that have been previously overlooked or ignored.
“I think if I’m trying to sort of understand this from the perspective of our opposition, they say, ‘Well, the economists and the media say that tariffs are really bad. It leads to bad things for the American consumer. It leads to bad things for the international community,’” Vance noted. “I think President Trump looks and says, ‘Okay, 80 percent of Mexico’s exports are to the United States, 78 percent of Canada’s exports are to the United States, we actually have incredible economic leverage over them. Why don’t we use it to accomplish something meaningful for the American people?’”
“I think it, again, goes back to the president is biased towards action, and that is a fundamental difference from what we’ve seen in government in a very, very long time,” the vice president continued. “And of course, President Trump was biased towards action in the first term, but I think he was surrounded by a lot of people who were biased towards inaction. And he still got a lot done, but I think he’s going to get a lot more done in the second term because he’s got people around him who really agree with him.”
Vance suggested that tariffs can be a powerful means and tool for four distinct purposes: diplomatic leverage, revenue raising, industry reshoring, and economic relationship construction.
“A friend of mine talks about how tariffs actually accomplish four things,” Vance detailed. “They can be used as diplomatic leverage; that’s number one. Number two: They can raise revenue. Number three: They can reshore industries. And number four: They can help us build economic relationships because if you’re putting tariffs on one country, you’re not putting tariffs on another country, or not necessarily. And it’s really interesting that for 180 years, America became the wealthiest, most prosperous, and most powerful country in the world by using tariffs, sometimes selectively, sometimes more aggressively, but it’s like the entire last 50 years, they’ve become a dirty word. Why? Again, it’s the bias towards inaction versus the bias towards action.”
The vice president also zoned in on Canada, saying cultural commonalities should not be an excuse for trade inequity.
“There’s this idea with Canada in particular, so you hear this a lot, ‘Well, Canada is our best friend.’ Well, in some ways, yeah, they are our best friend. They’re our closest neighbor. They’re culturally very similar. Americans travel to Canada. Canadians travel to America. But just because we have strong cultural ties with Canada doesn’t mean that we should let them take advantage of us economically,” Vance said. “Ask yourself, what tariff does Canada apply to American agricultural exports into Canada? On butter, it’s like 300 percent. So if the Canadians are not playing nice, that’s not the behavior of a good friend, and it’s reasonable for us to say, ‘Uh, we need to rebalance this relationship because the Canadians have not been respectful of us.’”
“And, yeah, of course, we honor the fact that Canadians contributed to NATO, sent troops to Afghanistan, but because the Canadians sent troops to Afghanistan 20 years ago or 15 years ago, doesn’t mean that we’re not allowed to engage in economic relationships that put the American people first,” he added.
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