MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Import Tariffs

Interview

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HAYES: The new tariffs come exactly one year since the President announce plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. The U.S. is now the only nation on earth to reject the climate pact. The tariffs also come just a few weeks since the President pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal a major break with Europe`s closest allies in Europe.

Days later, the President of the European Council wrote looking at the latest decisions of Donald Trump someone could even think with friends like that who needs enemies. To help break down the President is changing America`s role in the world, I`m joined by Congressman Ted Lieu Democrat from California and a Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. First, I guess your reaction to what these tariffs do to America`s relationship with some of its closest allies?

REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Thank you, Chris, for your question. It`s very clear that Donald Trump is much more comfortable with autocrats and non-democracies such as Russia and China or the same time offending our own allies such as Canada, Mexico in the entire European Union. But what`s really disturbing is there doesn`t seem to be any sort of long-term strategic policy. The President wakes up one day and says he`s going to do tariffs, then a few days later he says you should exempt all these countries, and now we learned he`s not going to exempt those countries so it`s very erratic and it`s making these allies think we are unstable partner and that is not helpful to the United States.

HAYES: One thing here, just to be clear on this. The reason that -- Justin Trudeau reference this and I think it`s important for people to understand what`s going on here. The reason that the executive, the White House, the Article 2 branch of Constitution can unilaterally impose these tariffs is under a national security provision. And so the logic that must follow is that there might be a war with Canada in which we couldn`t use their steel and aluminum and is there any person in the world who think that`s true?

LIEU: Not at all. And in fact, the law was put in place to deal with situations that look nothing like this one. Canada is one of America`s oldest and strongest allies. And by the way, the President just makes things up. The President keeps saying somehow Canada`s taking advantage of United States. The U.S. actually has a $13 billion dollar trade surplus with Canada. We wrote a letter to U.S. Trade Representative who actually says the U.S. has a trade surplus for Canada and we asked the trade route sort of to say that`s not true. He has not done that so we`re going to assume that that is still a true fact.

HAYES: So -- right. So, first of all, we have a trade surplus with Canada, we`re not going to go to war with them and not use their aluminum and steel and I guess the question is Congress should just wrench back the power. I mean, honestly, this seems an obvious abrogation of congressional power here.

LIEU: Yes and you actually have bipartisan outrage against what Donald Trump is doing. Speaker Ryan, Mitch McConnell, a number of Democrats have all said that this is just stupid the way that the President is doing this. And we know it`s really quite insane when both U.S. Steel companies and U.S. Steel Workers oppose the tariffs on Canada. And then the Aluminum Association opposes Trump`s tariffs on aluminum against these other
countries. So there is literally no one that`s supporting these tariffs.

HAYES: Yes, that`s a good point. We had a Leo Gerard who is the head of the Steel Workers Union who`s a supporter of the idea of tariffs on imports of metals from China, even he who`s one of the terrorists strongest supporters opposes tariffs on Canada. There is no one as far as I can tell aside from literally the President of the United States is making the case for that.

LIEU: Absolutely true. And something else to consider, I don`t think the President understands that the world order that was created as dominating the world in the economy benefits the United States. We`re at the center of it as our Western democracies. When we don`t work with our allies, countries like Russia and China are very happy about that and it`s already pushed other countries who were our allies to work with countries like China and Russia. So for example, Japan and China have now held their first trade talks in over eight years precisely because Japan views America is an unreliable partner.

HAYES: I should note, Putin critic Garry Kasparov tweeting in January 2017, I gave Putin`s wish list to explain what he most wanted from Trump, lifting sanctions is number one but Flynn got caught and blew it up. A trade war with NATO allies was number two. Congressman Ted Lieu, thank you for joining me.

LIEU: Thank you.

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