CLAIM: Former President Donald Trump said during Tuesday night’s presidential debate that United States tariffs on imports did not cause the record inflation that has occurred under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
VERDICT: True. Research has repeatedly shown that there is no connection between U.S. tariffs on imports and the ongoing inflation that has gripped the nation’s economy.
“We’re doing tariffs on other countries — other countries are going to, finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world,” Trump said. “The tariffs will be substantial in some cases … [Biden and Harris] never took the [China] tariff off because it was so much money — they can’t … they’ve left the tariffs on.”
“When I had it, I had tariffs, and, yet, I had no inflation,” Trump said.
Indeed, research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes that there is no link between U.S. tariffs and inflation.
“The timing of the tariffs clearly shows no correlation with inflation, and eliminating tariffs could not plausibly restrain it,” EPI researchers write. “The bulk of the tariffs were in place before 2020, yet, inflation only began accelerating in March 2021. Clearly, inflation was driven by many sources besides tariffs.”
During the debate, Harris again used talking points from the libertarian-oriented National Taxpayers Union, which lobbies in defense of unfettered free trade and against tariffs to claim that U.S. tariffs are the equivalent of a “national sales tax” on middle-class Americans.
Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney has fact-checked that claim, noting that it is false to suggest tariffs are taxes on American consumers.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
