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President Donald Trump clashed with a reporter Thursday over questions on a newly signed tariff, telling him that he had spent his first time period “preventing lunatics such as you.” The extraordinary alternate follows a White Home signing ceremony for a sequence of government actions aimed toward increasing reciprocal tariffs and strengthening U.S. commerce coverage.
Whereas talking with reporters on the White Home after the signing, a reporter confronted Trump on why he’s emphasizing tariffs extra in his second time period.
“You’re weighing your resolution to do this, your authority to do this primarily based on a 1977 legislation. It is by no means been invoked earlier than,” stated the reporter. “Why did not you invoke this legislation in your first time period? You would have taken in billions upon billions of {dollars} in your first time period, however you waited till your second time period?”
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President Donald Trump drilled right into a reporter over a query on tariffs on Thursday, telling him that he needed to spend his first time period “preventing lunatics such as you.” (Photograph by Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos)
With out lacking a beat, the president shot again: “Yeah, as a result of in my first time period, I used to be preventing lunatics such as you who had been making an attempt to do issues incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected.”
“And we did do sure tariffs within the first time period,” he continued. “If you happen to have a look at China, China, we took in a whole lot of billions of {dollars} from China.”
He additionally stated that the COVID-19 pandemic additionally performed a think about his resolution to not emphasize tariffs as a lot in his first time period.
“When Covid got here the very last thing I used to be going to do is inform France and Italy and Spain and a few different nations that we will hit you with tariffs,” he defined. “We needed to battle the Covid scenario when that got here.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump holds a “International Commerce Limitations” doc as he delivers remarks on tariffs within the Rose Backyard on the White Home in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photograph)
“However should you have a look at my first time period,” he went on, “We took in a whole lot of billions of {dollars}’ price of tariffs, however you folks did not cowl it very effectively.”
A press release by the White Home stated that Trump’s government actions taken on Thursday “displays the President’s continued efforts to guard the USA towards overseas threats to the nationwide safety and financial system of the USA by securing honest, balanced, and reciprocal commerce relationships to profit American employees, farmers, and producers and to strengthen the USA’ protection industrial base.”
This comes shortly after Trump and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen introduced a commerce deal between the U.S. and E.U. on Sunday.
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President Donald Trump (R) shakes palms with European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen (L) following their assembly in Turnberry, southwest Scotland on July 27, 2025. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Photos)
“We’re agreeing that the tariff straight throughout for vehicles and the whole lot else shall be a straight-across tariff of 15%,” Trump stated.
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“So, we now have a tariff of 15%. We’ve got the opening up of all the European nations, which I feel I might say had been basically closed. I imply, you were not precisely taking our orders. You were not precisely taking our agriculture,” he added, addressing von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen stated Europe may even buy $150 billion price of U.S. power as a part of the deal, along with making $600 billion in different investments into the U.S.
Fox Information Digital’s Anders Hagstrom and Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
Peter Pinedo is a politics author for Fox Information Digital.
