5 Times the Trump Team Told Americans To Accept Being Poorer
President Donald Trump made headlines this week when he seemed to suggest that American families might be able to afford fewer toys due to his trade policies.
“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” Trump said on Wednesday, “and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”
That was Trump’s most direct admission yet about the potential costs of his trade war—which could reduce the average household’s income by nearly $3,800 this year, according to the Yale Budget Lab’s estimates.
But this was not a run-of-the-mill gaffe or another case of Trump saying the quiet part out loud. If anything, Trump was merely underlining a sentiment that’s gained traction on the political right in recent years: that Americans should be forced to pay higher prices for basic goods and household items.
Don’t believe me? Here are four other recent incidents in which national conservatives in Trump’s orbit admitted as much.
Robert Lighthizer, August 2022
While speaking at the American Economic Forum, Trump’s former U.S. Trade Representative dismissed free trade as being rooted in “a philosophy of consumption” that is too “materialistic.”
“The best way to fix consumerism is to raise prices,” Lighthizer said. “Is consumption really a problem in America?”
That might be easy to say as someone who has spent his career bouncing back and forth between law, politics, and finance—Lighthizer just landed a plush new gig as a “senior advisor” for Citigroup. For many Americans, however, higher prices would mean a material reduction in living standards.
When Lighthizer criticizes “consumerism” and “consumption,” he’s really just saying that you should be happy with paying more and getting less. Maybe that’s true for some people, but that’s not something that a president or a presidential appointee should get to decide for you.
Dan Bishop, April 2024
In remarks read into the congressional record, then-Rep. Dan Bishop (R–N.C.) decried the “cheap crap” that Americans were importing from China.
“In just the last 2 years, roughly, Chinese online marketplaces have exploded in size, selling cheap goods at dumping prices into the American market,” said Bishop, who is now the deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. “You can go buy sneakers on Temu for $5, a
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