During this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) boasted about the global response to the Trump administration’s tariff policy.
The Oklahoma Republican acknowledged the market sell-off but said some of America’s trade partners were finally coming to the table in response to the policies.
“So, let’s talk about the fallout from the tariffs,” host Shannon Bream said. “You heard some of the folks that are worried in William’s reporting there about what’s going to happen to their businesses. Reuters summarizes the last few days this way, in a matter of days, the president’s imposed heavy tariffs on the world, made an abrupt U-turn on his decision and intensified a trade war with China. Stocks globally have shed trillions of dollars and world markets have gone into a tailspin. The U.S. dollar has also taken a hit. So we’re in a 90-day pause now. What needs to happen in that pause?”
“So really what has happened is the stock market did have a shuffle for about 48 hours and then had a really great week at the end of this,” Lankford replied. “So last week was a very good week for the stock market. There’s a 90-day pause because so many countries have come at the administration and said, remember all those things that we’ve blocked out for a long time, just kidding, we want to be able to actually fix some of those things now. So whether it’s Australian beef, whether it’s Argentina, whether it’s Japan, whether it’s Vietnam, we’ve had trade issues where they blocked out our products for a very long time. Now they’re suddenly coming to the United States with paper to say, here are the things that we want to be able to solve. That is very good for America long-term.”
He continued, “We’ve got three months for the administration to be able to solidify a lot of these agreements. That will be helpful for the country for a very, very long time. If there’s any one thing I hear from my farmers and ranchers, other than rain at the right time, it is we want to open up markets globally. We want to be able to sell our products around the world. Joe Biden refused to go do new trade agreements. President Trump is doing that immediately.”
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