NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump President Trump suggested to business leaders on Thursday that his plan to raise tariffs on foreign imports would address seemingly unrelated issues, such as the rising cost of child care in the United States.
The Republican presidential candidate has promised to lead a so-called “national economic renaissance” by raising tariffs, cutting regulations to boost energy production and sharply reducing government spending and corporate taxes on companies that produce in the United States.
Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, President Trump was asked about his plans to lower the cost of child care to encourage more women to enter the workforce.
“Childcare is childcare, and it’s a necessity in this country. It’s a necessity,” he said, adding that his plan to impose high taxes on foreign imports would “solve” these problems.
“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and while people always say child care is expensive, it’s not that expensive in relative terms compared to the amount of money we’re taking in,” he said.
Trump has embraced tariffs as an appeal to working-class voters who oppose free trade deals and the offshoring of factories and jobs. But in his speech on Thursday and throughout his economic plan, Trump made a broader — and, to some, implausible — promise about tariffs: that they could raise trillions of dollars to fund his policies without passing the costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices.
His campaign attacks the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris He has opposed proposals to raise corporate taxes, saying the costs would ultimately be passed on to workers in the form of fewer jobs and lower incomes, but taxes on foreign imports would have a similar effect, with businesses and consumers having to absorb the costs in the form of higher prices.
U.S. imports totaled $3.8 trillion last year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. President Trump has previously vowed to impose across-the-board tariffs of at least 10% or more, but has not provided details on how such taxes would be implemented.
Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has repeatedly warned in her economic analyses about the potential damage that Trump’s tariffs could cause to Americans’ finances, saying that Trump is trying to pay for everything with tariffs, but that’s not possible.
“I believe President Trump has already used this revenue to cut taxes (which will not be a cut) or repeal the income tax (which will not be repeal),” she said in an email. “It is unclear whether any revenue will be left over for child care.”
Trump was asked to talk about raising children.
Child care is unaffordable for many Americans and economically precarious for many child care providers and their employees. Democrats in Congress It has been a long debate The child care industry is in crisis and needs a massive boost in federal aid, a sentiment echoed by Republicans. Trump touted his announcement of the tariffs and efforts to cut what he called “waste and fraud.”
“I want to stick to child care, but these numbers are small compared to the numbers I’m talking about, like economic growth, but the growth is being driven by the plan I just told you about,” he said.
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Trump’s Vice Presidential Candidate J.D. Vance Earlier this week, he was also asked about proposals to lower childcare fees and make it easier for families to leave their children with grandparents or other relatives.
“All we need to do is get grandma and grandpa to want to help out a little more,” he says, “and that will take some of the strain off all the resources we put into day care.”
Vance also suggested there should be more training for child care workers, saying some states require “ridiculous certifications that have nothing to do with caring for children.”
President Trump unveiled a series of economic proposals
In his speech, President Trump said he would immediately declare a “national emergency” to dramatically increase the nation’s energy supply and repeal 10 current regulations for every new regulation the government puts in place. He said Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Lead the committee Conduct a federal financial audit and save trillions of dollars.
“My plan will rapidly defeat inflation, rapidly lower prices and reignite explosive economic growth,” Trump argued.
President Trump had previously floated the idea of lowering the corporate tax rate to 15%, but clarified Thursday that it would only apply to companies that produce in the U.S. The corporate tax rate was 35% when he took office in 2017, but he has since signed legislation lowering it.
Harris has called for raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Her policy proposals this week are focused on encouraging entrepreneurship, believing that making it easier to start new businesses would increase middle-class prosperity.
President Trump on Thursday attacked Harris’ anti-price gouging proposal, accusing her of supporting Marxism and Communism.
“She wants to advance four more years of far-left policies that pose a fundamental threat to the prosperity of every American family and America itself,” he said.
He also vowed to end what he called Harris’ “anti-energy crusade” and promised to cut energy prices in half, even though prices are often subject to fluctuations in international prices. He said the emergency declaration would help speed up approvals for new drilling projects, pipelines, refineries, power plants and nuclear reactors that face fierce local opposition.
He also said he would ask Congress to pass a bill to stop spending tax money on illegal immigrants. He specifically said he would stop them from getting mortgages in California. Bills passed in the state Trump has campaigned last week on the impact of recent immigration on the economy and the strain it has put on some government services.
Harris’ campaign released a memo arguing that Trump wants to hurt the middle class and that his ideas would increase the national debt and reduce economic growth and job creation.
“He wants our economy to serve billionaires and big corporations,” the campaign said in a statement.
Their opposing economic policies are likely to be at the center of Tuesday’s presidential debate. Harris arrived in downtown Pittsburgh on Thursday and will spend the next few days preparing for the debate. She purposely picked key areas of battleground state Pennsylvania to work out her thinking ahead of the showdown.
President Trump plans to rely heavily on tariffs
The right-leaning Tax Foundation estimated in June that Trump’s proposed tariffs would amount to a $524 billion annual tax hike, shrinking the economy and costing the equivalent of 684,000 jobs. After Trump raised the tariffs to 20% in August, Harris’ campaign pounced on an analysis that showed that figure would increase spending for the typical family by nearly $4,000 a year.
The money raised by the tariffs would not be enough to offset the cost of a range of income tax cuts, including a plan to lower the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15%, which a budget model from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania estimates would cost $5.8 trillion over 10 years.
Economists have warned about President Trump’s plans for tariffs that he says will bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Some say such taxes on imports could worsen inflation, which peaked at 9.1% in 2022 before easing to 2.9% as of last month, even as Trump promises to reduce costs.
“Some might call it economic nationalism. I call it common sense, I call it America First,” he said Thursday.
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Bork from Pittsburgh. Associated Press writers Moria Balingit and Amelia Thomson-DeVoe in Washington contributed to this report.