President Donald Trump mentioned on Sunday his tariff coverage was aimed toward selling the home manufacturing of tanks and expertise merchandise, not sneakers and T-shirts.
Talking to reporters earlier than boarding Air Power One in New Jersey, Trump mentioned he agreed with feedback from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on April 29 that the US doesn’t essentially want a “booming textile industry” – feedback that drew criticism from the Nationwide Council of Textile Organizations.
“We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts. We want to make military equipment. We want to make big things. We want to make, do the AI thing,” Trump mentioned.
“I’m not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest. I’m not looking to make socks. We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things, and tanks and ships,” Trump mentioned.
The American Attire & Footwear Affiliation mentioned in response to Trump’s remarks that tariffs weren’t good for the business.
“With 97% of the clothes and shoes we wear being imported, and with clothes and shoes already the most highly tariffed industry in the US, we need to focus on common sense solutions that can move the needle,” AAPA President Steve Lamar mentioned in an announcement.
“More tariffs will only mean higher input costs for US manufacturers and higher prices that will hurt lower income consumers.”
Trump, who has upended world markets with the broad imposition of tariffs, revived his harsh commerce rhetoric on Friday when he pushed for a 50% tariff on European Union items beginning June 1 and warned Apple he could impose a 25% levy on all imported iPhones purchased by US customers.
However he dialed again on the EU menace on Sunday, extending a deadline for these tariffs till July 9 to permit for talks between Washington and the 27-nation bloc.
Trump received the 2016 and 2024 US presidential elections partly by interesting to working class voters harm by the lack of US manufacturing jobs over a few years.
He has sought to make good on his guarantees to spice up manufacturing with import tariffs and heralding investments by corporations and international nations into the USA, even because the US economic system stays depending on provide chains with different nations the place many items, together with textiles, are produced much less expensively.
