In an interview with Trump administration trade adviser and Project 2025 contributor Peter Navarro, Fox News host Sandra Smith raised concerns from some Republicans, namely Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, that President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China would raise prices for American consumers. In response, Navarro falsely claimed that tariffs can push prices lower, and pointed to Trump’s 2019 tariffs as evidence, which actually resulted in increased prices.
On Fox, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro falsely claims that tariffs lead to lower prices
Economists have explained that adding import taxes to products increases prices
Written by Zachary Pleat
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From the February 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' America Reports
SANDRA SMITH (CO-ANCHOR): There are some Republicans in Congress who are saying this is a tax, and they're against more taxes on the American people in this moment. Rand Paul from Kentucky tweeted out, “Tariffs are simply taxes. Conservatives once united against new taxes. Taxing trade will mean less trade and higher prices." So, while you might get more support for the war on fentanyl, there are people who are still living through historically high prices, and they just came off an administration that ran inflation up to levels we've never seen. So can you promise this won't eventually lead to an economic hit in the form of higher prices for American people?
PETER NAVARRO (TRUMP TRADE ADVISER): What's funny to me as an economist, Sandra, is if you go back to 2018, 2019, when the president, President Trump imposed historic tariffs on China: steel and aluminum, solar, dishwashers, other products. Those very same people, whether they're on the Hill, or whether they're in think tanks, or whether they're in the ivory tower, or whether they're on the media, they all said the same thing. We were going to have inflation and recession.
And guess what? We had neither. Neither. Neither. And it's because of how countries respond to tariffs, as a rule. We are the biggest market in the world. They take advantage of us. We have the lowest tariffs, the lowest trade barriers of any. They flood our markets.
What's the first thing that happens when we raise tariffs? They lower their prices. And we saw no inflation, and we saw no recession. We saw prosperity, a golden age. And that's what we're going to have. And this is the first step.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers called out then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance for pushing the same falsehood. Wolfers said: “He's saying if we implement tariffs, you'll get lower prices. That's absurd. That's crazy. We have no examples of that occurring.” As for Navarro’s specific claim of tariffs leading to lower prices for home appliances, Wolfers explained: “There's been very careful studies by economists that showed when you implemented a tariff under Trump on washing machines, that dollar for dollar, every dollar of the tariff went through to higher prices for washing machines.”
Wolfers also explained this on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating: “Eliminating the tariff led the price of washing machines to fall. Raising tariffs yielded no lasting benefit.”
Economic analyst Steven Rattner, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed that Trump’s first term tariffs led to a $200 increase in the cost of washing machines, above the core rate of inflation. He also showed that their price dropped $75 after the tariffs were removed.
Furthermore, as Brendan Duke of the Center for American Progress argued in a post rebutting misleading tariff claims from the Trump White House, the scope of the tariffs proposed by Trump dwarf previous targeted import taxes.
Economists broadly agree that should Trump’s newest tariffs go into effect, they will cost American workers hundreds of thousands of jobs, while reducing economic growth in the U.S., and reigniting higher inflation.