Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday stated that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “basically taxes.”
Ryan remarks come just a day after Harley-Davidson said it would begin manufacturing some motorcycles overseas to avoid retaliatory tariffs from the European Union, The New York Post reported.
“I think tariffs are basically taxes,” Ryan told reporters at the Capitol. “What ends up happening is you get escalating tariffs and end up raising taxes.”
Last fall, Ryan visited Harley-Davidson headquarters in his home state to praise how the Milwaukee-based motorcycle maker and other companies would benefit by the lower taxes from the historic GOP tax-cuts law.
However, the Speaker at that time warned that Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and steel exports could spark a trade war with allies around the world.
On Tuesday, Ryan also said that the tariffs would undermine some of the benefits of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“One of the reasons we did tax reform was to make it easier for businesses to keep manufacturing in America and export overseas,” Ryan said. “There are unfair trading practices, no two ways about it, by other countries. I think it’s in our interest to use other tools to go after those unfair trading practices to stop other countries from dumping, from cheating, from stealing … but I think there are better tools than tariffs.”
Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday accused Harley-Davidson of using the European Union’s retaliatory tariffs on its motorcycles as an “excuse” for shifting some of its production abroad, warning that the company then would not be able to sell its bikes back to the U.S. without “paying a big tax.”
“Early this year Harley-Davidson said they would move much of their plant operations in Kansas City to Thailand. That was long before Tariffs were announced,” Trump tweeted.
Trump also warned that if Harley-Davidson shifts production abroad, it will be the “beginning of the end” for the motorcycle giant, insisting that its bikes should “never be built in another country.”
“A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country-never! Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end – they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!”
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