Douglas Holtz-Eakin on Non-Retaliation Tariffs Against Trump: I’m Surprised, ‘I Cannot Give You a Perfect Answer’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
GIGOT: “Doug, one of my concerns on the whole process started is that you would get into a retaliatory cycle that Trump would impose tariffs in Europe, Japan would respond with their tariffs and would be off back into a 1930s sort of spiraled downward on trade. That is not happened because Europe and Japan and others have not retaliated. China really was the one country that did retaliate in a big way and then that U.S. and China declared a truce. Are you surprised these countries did not retaliate and why didn’t they?”

HOLTZ-EAKIN: “I am surprised. I cannot give you a perfect answer. One of the things that is it notable here is that in the past these relations will be kept in the cycle of economic policy. The president has been very unde mixing foreign-policy sale India you are tariff a race is going to depend on your purchases of Russian oil and of military equipment from Russia. Given this across-the-board priscilla and others. I think the scope of the negotiations were broader than these countries expected and decided to hold their fire and see where they’re going to land.”