President Donald Trump is mulling yet another wave of across-the-board tariffs, NBC News exclusively reported Thursday.
"'We’re just going to say all of the remaining countries are going to pay, whether it’s 20% or 15%. We’ll work that out now,' Trump told NBC News’ 'Meet the Press' moderator Kristen Welker in a phone call. Blanket tariffs are currently set at 10%," said the report. Trump went on to say, “I think the tariffs have been very well-received. The stock market hit a new high today.”
The president brushed aside warnings from the CEO of Hasbro that toy prices could go up as a result of the tariffs, saying, “If you look at the numbers, inflation’s gone down.” He added, “I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything about Hasbro. I don’t care about their prices. But if they make their toys here, if they made their toys here, they wouldn’t have a price increase.”
This lines up with Trump's controversial remarks earlier in the year demanding that toy companies set up doll factories in the United States to avoid tariffs.
It also comes as Trump is announcing a 35 percent tariff on Canadian goods, effective at the beginning of August.
Trump's tariffs stand to affect the price of goods in a variety of different industries, with even the pharmaceutical industry potentially facing hikes.
Nonetheless, the president has often pushed back and delayed his most severe tariffs as markets react fearfully and as he boasts he can make new trade deals with other countries. One White House insider admitted earlier this week that Trump's additional trade war threats on top of what he has already imposed are mostly for show at this point.
