Fox News’ Julie Banderas on Thursday predicted “a wild ride” for Americans with rising product prices if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his vow to hike tariffs on his return to the White House.
Trump has promised to put a 25% tariff on all products from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on those from China, moves that leading economists have warned will send inflation soaring.
Small business expert Gene Marks told Banderas that businesses that “are buying American” and “selling American” won’t be hit by the tariffs.
He also talked about how many companies that do import are already “making moves right now to make sure they’re protecting themselves” by buying up stock before the tariffs are introduced or looking for other US-based supplies.
Banderas, though, said: “Let’s be realistic.”
“A lot of American companies do not buy American. They do rely on a lot of merchandise that is purchased from other countries,” she said in video shared online by Mediaite, later arguing that: “I think if American companies are forced to buy American, it is going to cost more ultimately.”
“Who’s going to pay for that?” she asked. “We are. I mean, we are going to be buying the merchandise that they are going to have to raise the costs on because they’re not going to be buying from foreign countries. So ultimately, it does come down to the taxpayer dollar. We’ll see how that works.”