Fox News guest: Trump's tariffs are “pushing our allies into the hands of China”

Former Trump official Marc Short: “Now you're pushing our allies into the hands of China by this trade policy”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the April 2, 2025, edition of Fox News' America Reports

JOHN ROBERTS (CO-ANCHOR): All right, Liberation Day is here. President Trump gearing up to unveil his sweeping tariff plans later on today at the first Rose Garden event of his new term. Let's bring in Marc Short, White House legislative affairs director during the first Trump administration.

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ROBERTS: So, you've got some concerns about these tariffs. You had concerns in the first administration as well, but your concerns are different this time.

MARC SHORT (FORMER TRUMP WH LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS DIRECTOR): Well, yeah, John, I think that the president's first administration had an enormously successful economic record, in many cases because they focused on the deregulatory agenda, and obviously the big legislative triumph of the tax relief in 2017. When tariffs were used, it was very targeted toward China. What we're approaching now is the president has 22 separate investigations coming back today from the Department of Commerce. This should give him enormous latitude to assess tariffs pretty much globally. And you've heard from what Peter Navarro and others in the White House have said, is that that's what they're aim and objective is.

And, I think that is a very different strategy than the success of the first administration. I think economically, you've already seen Cleveland-Cliffs last week announce — the largest steelmaker in the United States — layoffs of 1,200 employees in Michigan and Minnesota, who this is supposed to be benefiting.

And I don't think we've talked enough about the national security implications. Last week you saw as well, Korea and Japan say they're going to work with China against these tariffs. These are our allies, who we had China isolated in the first administration. And now you're pushing our allies into the hands of China by this trade policy.